[POLL] Doomed or Survive Long Term

[SteveP]

Would you prefer to see the Sandbox impose resource limits that mean you must ultimately perish or should indefinite survival be possible? This is just a for fun poll. Suggest a new option and I will add it.

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[Scyzara]

Some choices in your vote don't make much sense. E.g. this one: "It is or should be possible to survive with only the Magnifying Lens and no tools "

As a matter of fact, it is possible to survive with only a magnifying lens and no tools (see mellow_swe's birthday suit challenge), but I personally don't want it to be this way. I'd very much prefer to die inevitably, and not after 5.000 days+ like currently, but e.g. after max. one year (due to way higher item and prey scarcity). Now please tell me what am I supposed to choose in your vote? Only "Doomed" or both options? For I know infinite survival IS possible although I personally wish it wasn't.

Question two is odd as well. Are you asking what we wish to be the case, e.g. "I wish it was possible to perish because I run out of matches" or are you asking what actually kills you during the current game? If the latter is the case, you should add "lack of antiseptic and antibiotics" and remove "lack of coal", for coal respawns infinitely.

You really can't expect a vote to yield in any way helpful results for the Devs if it's not even clear what you're asking exactly. People will just click on options depending on how they  personally interpret your questions. Which will cause nonsense results at best and falsified results at worst.

And they will klick on stuff based on their own knowledge, ofc.

One Example: If one doesn't know that coal respawns infinitely, this person is going to vote differently than if he/she knew it is infinite. Same for matches and metal tools: If people don't KNOW that these aren't necessary for survival because they've never played a challenge, they will probably believe they'll die once they run out of them. Which just isn't the case. You need to provide these informations for everyone if you want them to make meaningful choices in your vote.

[SteveP]

9 hours ago, Scyzara said:

Some choices in your vote don't make much sense. E.g. this one: "It is or should be possible to survive with only the Magnifying Lens and no tools "

As a matter of fact, it is possible to survive with only a magnifying lens and no tools (see mellow_swe's birthday suit challenge), but I personally don't want it to be this way. I'd very much prefer to die inevitably, and not after 5.000 days+ like currently, but e.g. after max. one year (due to way higher item and prey scarcity). Now please tell me what am I supposed to choose in your vote? Only "Doomed" or both options? For I know infinite survival IS possible although I personally wish it wasn't.

Question two is odd as well. Are you asking what we wish to be the case, e.g. "I wish it was possible to perish because I run out of matches" or are you asking what actually kills you during the current game? If the latter is the case, you should add "lack of antiseptic and antibiotics" and remove "lack of coal", for coal respawns infinitely.

You really can't expect a vote to yield in any way helpful results for the Devs if it's not even clear what you're asking exactly. People will just click on options depending on how they  personally interpret your questions. Which will cause nonsense results at best and falsified results at worst.

And they will klick on stuff based on their own knowledge, ofc.

One Example: If one doesn't know that coal respawns infinitely, this person is going to vote differently than if he/she knew it is infinite. Same for matches and metal tools: If people don't KNOW that these aren't necessary for survival because they've never played a challenge, they will probably believe they'll die once they run out of them. Which just isn't the case. You need to provide these informations for everyone if you want them to make meaningful choices in your vote.

How would you suggest I change it using only three questions? I thought old man's beard would suffice for all injuries. If you run out of cloth for bandages, that is more serious. Are wolf encounters inevitable? They would be if you eventually run out of ammunition and arrows. Most of the time, if I have fire, and hence torches, I can avoid wolf confrontations. Yeah, I'm not entirely happy with the poll either but I needed to capture the range of thoughts I had. I'm not averse to help and analysis. We Canadians are very collegial, eh?

Would you like some options to be multiple choice for a given question? I like to have one question that is not multiple choice so I can count the number of voters.

[Scyzara]

3 minutes ago, SteveP said:

 I'm not averse to help and analysis. We Canadians are very collegial, eh? I know; I worked in the USA for a brief while and the contrast is obvious.

Would you like some options to be multiple choice for a given question? I like to have one question that is not multiple choice so I can count the number of voters.

Just as a sidenote: I'm not from the US if that's what you think. (English isn't even my first language). 

What I personally would like you to do is to rephrase your questions and answers to make sure they're unambiguous and not mistakable. If you can't even tell whether a question in a poll aims at your opinion about the current game (how ARE things) or about your wishes for the game (how do you WANT things to be), how are you supposed to vote about it?

Anyway, I'm out of here. Just wasting my time for sure, probably shouldn't have posted anything in the first place. Continue as you like with your polls, can't stop you anyway.

[SteveP]

10 hours ago, SteveP said:

Suggest a new option and I will add it.

This topic of surviving indefinitely is an important one. I would prefer to have input and assistance to better elaborate the options. As for question 2, it is multiple choice to cover the range of opinions that I have heard expressed before. Since the prevailing opinion seems to be that coal respawns I've removed that option. Metal does not respawn although there is a mechanism for spontaneous respawns as Raphael has mentioned. For a while we could get extra crowbars and tool kits from the Quonset Hut and matches from car glove boxes.

When I do forging operations, I take great lengths to have sufficient wood to extend the duration of the forging to make as many tools as is feasible before my player dies of fatigue or runs out of raw materials. I'm fine with coal respawning but it should not be so abundant that it makes it irrelevant to manage that resource.

[SEAplane]

My take on 'long term' survival would be 'sustainable' survival.   Most of the skills need to last 7+ days on any setting results in what I'd call a resource arc of where it's a stockpile and then deplete.  Call it 200 days per each map, and yeah could be longer or shorter, but my point is I would like to see some place, and you can't start there, where you could make a go of it.

Now that then begs the question why?  Sandbox mode was to be a test bed only, but Hinterland have said they see the value of the experience as well.  There is no reason the team could not add a mode to sandbox that has additional badges and some custom achievements for long term players or a long term mode with very little changes.

I have high hopes about the chapter release idea of the story and I would even pay for sets of chapters, but something tells me they will have to write it in a way that supports the story ending if they can't produce the next chapter.

All of that said I'm very pleased with the sandbox and I do miss a few things lost in updates and enjoy some of the new features too.

[LucidFugue]

The game used to be much more scarce in terms of resources. From matches to medicine to cloth to scrap metal... The game has been consistently moving towards indefinite survival. Even as a player who struggles to find purpose beyond day 50, I think this is a good thing. 

If you try to return to a doomed within a year scenario, it just encourages min/max playstyles where doing things like maxing your firestarting skills, stripping naked and hibernating all the time is essential if you want to maximise survival time, which becomes a de facto goal if the game has a defined end through starvation/freezing/infection. Those strategies are things we want to avoid where possible, because it makes the whole experience very gamey. 

The end goal is defined by the story. Sandbox is sandbox. It can be endless, or not. But it's always going to be what people make of it. 

In terms of sandbox transitioning between seasons, that would be a great question for the devs when they get to work on season 2. My gut instinct is it would be easier to say let's all start fresh rather than building in some complicated transition period, but it's too early to say either way. 

[Vhalkyrie]

Sandbox should be endless.  If the game always ends with me losing, why should I play?  It should be difficult, but I should have the dangled carrot that I could survive longer if only I ... <insert blank>.

But if a game will always ends after a fixed period, that would be irritating.  I can chose to continue playing after 200 days or not.  I can choose that it's too boring after a certain time or not.  I can always park my long term characters and wait for new content updates to try something new.  I have died and restarted enough on my own ineptitude that restarting after a forced period would be a deal breaker. 

[Raphael van Lierop]

Thanks to @SteveP for taking the time to put this poll together. Everyone else, I hope you can keep your feedback productive!

One general comment I'll make is that the more granular a poll becomes (i.e. the more options to choose from), the more people you need to vote on it before you can start to discern any trends that may exist. So, for question 2 (for example), the distribution of responses is currently pretty evenly spread out between several of the options, so much so that the data is not useful (to me) apart from to say "players are ready to accept limitations depending on what they are".

I suggest you try more targeted polls, and then break them down into more details as necessary. For example, one poll could be "what feels like a fair way to die in Sandbox?", and the options could be "wildlife kills me", "I run out of resources", "I succumb to long-term illnesses", etc., and then each of those could be broken down in a separate poll, for example, "What resource constraints would you accept in Sandbox", which could then break the resources down further "fuel, food, medicine, tools.", etc. In all cases, you'd want to include an option like "I don't think there should be any resource constraints". 

Hope that helps!

[SteveP]

1 hour ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Hope that helps

Thank you. It certainly does. This is the most difficult poll I've tried to do so far and my head hurts. I definitely like the way you've broken it down though. Makes more sense. For myself, I think I want to see more Risks aside from the primary ones we have now. Very little has been suggested about new risks except some medical conditions, maybe avalanche (depending upon constraints of the engine and memory) and maybe drowning if we had ability to go below ice with low tide hunting mussels.

[Raphael van Lierop]

2 hours ago, SteveP said:

Thank you. It certainly does. This is the most difficult poll I've tried to do so far and my head hurts. I definitely like the way you've broken it down though. Makes more sense. For myself, I think I want to see more Risks aside from the primary ones we have now. Very little has been suggested about new risks except some medical conditions, maybe avalanche (depending upon constraints of the engine and memory) and maybe drowning if we had ability to go below ice with low tide hunting mussels.

That sounds like an interesting poll. "What are some new risks you'd like to see added to The Long Dark" 1) Avalanches, 2) Drowning, 3) Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, etc.

[hauteecolerider]

4) Rabid wolves.

[Raphael van Lierop]

I should mention (quickly) that I'm not endorsing any of these proposed features or solutions. My participation in this discussion is purely to support the exploration, the process, and the discussion. I'll be monitoring with curiosity. But not promising or supporting any particular solution or course of action.

 

(At least, not until it ends up in the game. Zing!)

[SteveP]

Well this occurred to me while watching dinosaurs using same: Hot Springs!

They could be luxurious or deadly. Toxic gases, quicksand, boiling.

Cougars could be wolf x10, Moose and Elk are also quite dangerous particularly around young. People have been asking for young animals which can provoke hostile reactions from the parents.

There could be more severe injuries such as broken bones. You'd need to have enough stockpiled food to survive that.

Caves and mines could have nasty diseases from bats or rats.

You could get insects into things.

If you went into the long term survival end then maybe we want more activities and skills to practice. I wondered how attached we have grown to the current 12:1 fast game clock. (gonna take flak for that idea) Just saying, question the assumptions.

[Ohbal]

+1 for more risks

I like the idea of avalanches, but I somehow imagine they would be complex to implement. 

I'd like seeing more injuries. Fractures, as you mentioned, that would make us really weak to attacks, and slow as hell; and that would require to rest for longer periods. A week could prove a real challenge in most cases. 

Longer, super storms would also be a cool feature.

[SteveP]

I think I will make a different poll and let this one be. The problem is that I tried to put too many choices into Question 2. It's best of the choices of a poll are orthogonal, complete and mutually exclusive. Multiple choice questions are, by definition, not mutually exclusive or orthogonal but they become confusing if too many themes get lumped together.

Orthogonal is a computer design term from statistics that means "statistically independent". Examples would be the various attributes of an object. Mutually exclusive means the options cannot simultaneously be true. Examples are primary colors.

The orthogonal aspects would be each of the resources that could be constrained or limited.

Today is a busy day so I'll do this at a later time. At least we have lots of ideas here to talk about. I think it might be good to have more discussion of the various ways in which players could perish in the game and the possibilities of new risks or how risks might escalate during the game play either through heuristics, as the player solves problems and acquires new technology, or simply triggered automatically by the progression of days survived. Note those are not mutually exclusive.

A limitation of a single poll currently, is that it can have only three questions. It's better to factor the orthogonal parts to separate polls as Raphael has suggested.

[cekivi]

-1 to more risks, especially cougars, if they are not supported by the environment and story

Let's focus on just one random risk for instance: avalanches. If you want to add avalanches, are they going to be survivable? Do they only occur in certain areas? If you trigger one do you die via an arbitrary random number or do you have a chance to influence the outcome? Is it realistic for the player to be able to influence the outcome? How do you communicate to the player that this risk is present in the area you're in? How do you make sure that risk is communicated to the entire player base? Avalanche warning signs, while common in the mountains, likely mean nothing to someone living in Miami, Duba or Hong Kong who may have never seen one before.

Personally, I am firmly against anything that breaks the atmosphere of the game and random events that I can't influence definitely fall into this category. Dyeing due to a die roll I can't influence would be very frustrating. I would feel cheated and the experience as a whole would be quite jarring. Weather for instance, is a random event but how it affects you if influenced by your actions. You can determine how much daylight (or night time) is left, observe the environment to try and predict changes and then decide how to play accordingly. If you then get stuck in a blizzard and freeze to death, so be it. You made a bad decision. Walking along the coastal highway and getting swept to my death with no warning by an avalanche would not have that vital element of player agency making it arbitrary, jarring, unfair and, for me at least, not very fun.

[Mikeloeven]

Survival should depend on the players time management and basic knowledge of primitive survival techniques.

once loot has been exhausted the game should .... MUST provide primitive survival skills allowing the player to become self sufficient.

for example in the absence of matches or even flint and steel fires can be started by tying a shoelace to a curved piece of wood and using this device to turn a wooden dowel against a piece of wood generating coals by friction. this technique is called bow drilling and is a very basic survival skill. additionally tools made out of flints can supplement crafted metal tools while light sources can be crafted from animal fat.

 

But fundamentally the mains issue that prevents long term survival is the inability to craft arrows out of flint and the reliance on a forge located on one specific map to make more . additionally arrows require a special type of wood that must be cured which makes no sense while curing wood is needed to make the bow it;self arrows can be made from pretty much any relativity straight stick.

 

this limits the ability of the player to hunt large game since rifle ammunition is so scarce.

 

Lastly for hunting small animals like rabbits why not add a sling ? simple leather strap lasts forever and uses small stones as ammo which are pretty much infinite near a river

 

Worse yet is the lack of melee weapons for example you cannot attack a wolf with your hatchet or hunting knife for some completely arbitrary reason.

another issue is that the times and calories required to perform specific actions are drastically skewed. for example harvesting a branch takes 10 minutes when in real life you would be able to snap it into manageable pieces in at most 30 seconds. chopping limbs with a hatchett also yields less wood than one would expect taking more time than is reasonable.

 

lastly your in a forest why the hell cant you cut down a whole tree ??

 

I think hinterland should hire a few professional hunters/survivalists as consultants who are well versed in living off the land in these conditions as it would provide good insight on how to design the game to allow players to become 100% self sufficant

[Raphael van Lierop]

2 hours ago, Mikeloeven said:

Survival should depend on the players time management and basic knowledge of primitive survival techniques.

once loot has been exhausted the game should .... MUST provide primitive survival skills allowing the player to become self sufficient.

for example in the absence of matches or even flint and steel fires can be started by tying a shoelace to a curved piece of wood and using this device to turn a wooden dowel against a piece of wood generating coals by friction. this technique is called bow drilling and is a very basic survival skill. additionally tools made out of flints can supplement crafted metal tools while light sources can be crafted from animal fat.

 

But fundamentally the mains issue that prevents long term survival is the inability to craft arrows out of flint and the reliance on a forge located on one specific map to make more . additionally arrows require a special type of wood that must be cured which makes no sense while curing wood is needed to make the bow it;self arrows can be made from pretty much any relativity straight stick.

 

this limits the ability of the player to hunt large game since rifle ammunition is so scarce.

 

Lastly for hunting small animals like rabbits why not add a sling ? simple leather strap lasts forever and uses small stones as ammo which are pretty much infinite near a river

 

Worse yet is the lack of melee weapons for example you cannot attack a wolf with your hatchet or hunting knife for some completely arbitrary reason.

another issue is that the times and calories required to perform specific actions are drastically skewed. for example harvesting a branch takes 10 minutes when in real life you would be able to snap it into manageable pieces in at most 30 seconds. chopping limbs with a hatchett also yields less wood than one would expect taking more time than is reasonable.

 

lastly your in a forest why the hell cant you cut down a whole tree ??

 

I think hinterland should hire a few professional hunters/survivalists as consultants who are well versed in living off the land in these conditions as it would provide good insight on how to design the game to allow players to become 100% self sufficant

We know all these things. The fact that we don't allow players to cut down entire trees, or the fact that you do use weapons when fighting Wolves (you simply don't equip them first), are all extremely well-trodden topics in this community.

I don't mind people asking "why don't you?" but I take an extreme dislike to the assumption that things are the way they are in the game because we don't know any better. They are the way they are in the game precisely because we DO know better.

Self-sufficiency in The Long Dark is a game design challenge, not a "let's mirror the real world" challenge.

[elloco999]

7 hours ago, Mikeloeven said:

I think hinterland should hire a few professional hunters/survivalists as consultants who are well versed in living off the land in these conditions as it would provide good insight on how to design the game to allow players to become 100% self sufficant

Did you ever stop to think that it was never the intention to allow players to become 100% self sufficient?

[Vhalkyrie]

On 3/23/2016 at 9:45 PM, Mikeloeven said:

I think hinterland should hire a few professional hunters/survivalists as consultants who are well versed in living off the land in these conditions as it would provide good insight on how to design the game to allow players to become 100% self sufficant

Perhaps you should do a little more research on the game?

http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/10/03/the-long-dark-has-a-survival-expert-consultant-on-staff-adds-three-new-rewards-tiers/

http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/10/4823464/the-long-dark-a-game-about-survival

This is not "Camping Simulator 2000".  It's a game with survival elements for the purpose of driving a story.

[SEAplane]

22 minutes ago, Vhalkyrie said:

This is not "Camping Simulator 2000".  It's a game with survival elements for the purpose of driving a story.

Well said.  I have to keep reminding myself it's not a 'Bushcraft Simulator' either.   Easy mindset to fall into when it works as well as it does.

[SteveP]

Minecraft has been extremely successful with the open world concept.

[TheRealNFK]

DOOM: On the one hand, it would make sense that a lone individual who lived most of her or his life in modern, industrial society would eventually succumb to nature when the last useful tools of that society wore out after the quiet apocalypse. It also gives the game a tragic, elegiac quality.

RENEWABLE SURVIVAL: On the other hand, it might also be fun if there was a narrow path to survive indefinitely (of course, one bad mistake could still end the run) if certain survival tools could have natural, renewable equivalents. However, given the ingenuity of most gamers to run with the mechanics to the point of absurdity (looking at you, hibernation), there's probably a lot of design pitfalls with this approach.

For me, doom has its own charm, a no-win scenario that forces you to decide how you will meet your inevitable demise, because it's impossible to beat the real enemy: the passage of time.

 

Of course, I may simply be way too under-qualified to answer this, having yet to reach 200 days. Working on it, though!

[Hotzn]

13 hours ago, TheRealNFK said:

DOOM: On the one hand, it would make sense that a lone individual who lived most of her or his life in modern, industrial society would eventually succumb to nature when the last useful tools of that society wore out after the quiet apocalypse. It also gives the game a tragic, elegiac quality.

RENEWABLE SURVIVAL: On the other hand, it might also be fun if there was a narrow path to survive indefinitely (of course, one bad mistake could still end the run) if certain survival tools could have natural, renewable equivalents. However, given the ingenuity of most gamers to run with the mechanics to the point of absurdity (looking at you, hibernation), there's probably a lot of design pitfalls with this approach.

For me, doom has its own charm, a no-win scenario that forces you to decide how you will meet your inevitable demise, because it's impossible to beat the real enemy: the passage of time.

Well spoken, rep earned.

I prefer doom, since it provides a story in itself - the story of a man (or woman) who fought against the odds of nature and finally lost. Dignity and tragedy. Endless survival in a sandbox on the other hand, what kind of story would that be? The story of the man/woman who did the same things over and over into eternity, never aging, never changing, eating, sleeping, mending things, on and on. That is a story much more depressing than doom, and much less entertaining.

Now I am aware that probably the majority of players prefer endless survival. It would be immensely interesting to know the reasons. I presume different people will have different reasons, and I can only guess what they might be. Maybe some people hate to lose the (very immaterial) things they have accumulated in the game - their "loot", animal skins, tools, firewood, matches and so on. That would be understandable, since many people cling to their things in real life as well. It seems to be in our nature to collect things and safeguard them, even if often we collect and keep far more than we need (which is exactly what many players seem to do in TLD). Some other people might prefer the feeling that they can survive forever out of some childish fear of death that even carries over into computer games. I would also understand that. Well, I am just musing and presuming here...

Back on topic: I answered the poll, but - please take this as constructive criticism - in my view the questions are not contructed in way that the results will deliver a lot of insights. The first question should just offer two choices: 1. doom and 2. endless survival. A third choice might be that the game should offer a choice between the two, but since we are asking for preferences, this third choice is not even necessary. The second question should be: If you prefer doom, which cause would you prefer to finally cause your death? However, even worded like this the question is not really useful, as I would presume many "doomsday" players would not want to die of a certain cause, but would like the course of the game determine how you finally die. So in one run it might be a wolf attack, in another a food poisoning, and in a third an unexpected blizzard. I, personally, want to die, and ideally it should be different in different runs.

And since Raphael van Lierop is looking at this, I will go and elaborate how this game would have to be like to be my dream-game: I will start by saying that I am only referring to the sandbox, as the story mode will obviously follow completely different design rules. And I won't start to discuss single items or mechanics, but the overall way I would like the sandbox to "work". First of all, I have noted that there are two things that I will call "curves", hoping that the term makes sense or helps making clear what I mean to say. The first "curve" is the player's experience. The better we know the maps and game mechanics (wolf patrol areas, distribution of loot, location of shelters etc.), the easier the game becomes. This is obvious. Then there is another curve which I will call "equipment curve". We start with little equipment and need some time to collect materials and craft higher level gear. This process is cleverly extended by necessary curing mechanics, but at some point we have all the good equipment. Once we have overcome both curves, there may be a moment of repose where we just venture around and appreciate the maps, the weather and atmosphere of the game... maybe do a challenge or two and collect Steam achievements... and then we are missing something and stop playing. Well, at least that is what I did for the time being. In the past, the updates have always brought me back to the sandbox (for reasons I might explain in another thread), but since we are waiting for the big bang now... I am not playing.

After all this blabla (thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read up to here), what I am driving at: I would appreciate if this game introduced a third curve to work against the other two curves flattening out - a difficulty curve. If the game would become gradually more and more difficult, the temperatures colder, food scarcer, wolves more dangerous, blizzards longer, we would be forced to exert our skills and knowledge of the game more and more until... well, we finally die. But how would I enjoy this last fight, this clinging to the last scrap of life. Already starving, finding that last deer carcass and gaining some more miserable days. Overcoming that fever one last time to gather strength, take the rifle and venture out into the foggy cold to hunt... or fade into the long dark somewhere alone in the deep forest...

Well, I think I have made my point clear. Sorry for writing so much, but I felt it was more or less on topic here.