Yolan

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Everything posted by Yolan

  1. I know arguments for "realism" only go so far. After all this is a game and games have their own logic. But still a major part of what makes TLD so engaging is that it is a semi-realistic survival game. This is my major gripe with mechanics like cabin fever. Right now, for example, I am sitting by my fire outside, at night, in a snow storm, using my fire. The wind is blocked by the building I'm outside of, so the fire is fine, and I'm warm. But... if I was really in a survival situation there is no way I would be doing this when there is a perfectly good stove inside the building that I could be using. The only reason I'm doing it is to control the cabin fever mechanic, spending all time outside just to make sure that it doesnt sneak up on me in an inopportune time. To me, this mechanic stands out as overly artificial when compared to almost any other mechanic in TLD. Sprains I am not entirely against. The randomness is a risk factor that has to be considered, and it does make terrain traversal something to think about. All told, I think it's not a bad mechanic, it just needs adjusting down more. With item decay I am of a similar mind. It's not necessary to make items decay in an unrealistic way for the sake of making the game "harder". You could achieve this with item rarity. The degradation of clothing you are wearing in the environment is fine of course. The gradual expiry of canned goods as well. But why should clothing tems etc. stored in containers break down? They should hypothetically last years. In my opinion cabin fever, sprains, and item decay aren't core to the challenge of interloper difficulty. The real challenge is the temperatures, the item rarity, and the deadliness of wolf struggles. Ramp up the temp challenge even more by making indoor locations require some heating if there is a snow storm outside. Make wolfs more random, and the mode would be a lot harder than it is now, not easier than pilgrim.
  2. So I booted up the Long Dark again for once of my twice yearly ? loper sessions. I can never go too long without it. There's ultimately just nothing out there quite like the Long Dark. Got tripped up by a few map changes! And eventually my run ended when I impatiently decided to try and directly attack a wolf. ;-) Bad move. Anyway, after dying I realized I had finally crossed the 400 hour mark. Wow. Outside of city builder type games, I think this is the only game I have played for this long in my steam library. So, marking this occasion I thought I'd share my wishlist for survivor mode. Keep in mind that this is angled more at interloper play. My basic starting observation is that the game is in some respects too easy, but this has been addressed with some mechanics that feel unfair / uninteresting. 1. Please nerf sprain. Maybe have a mid-tier orange risk for medium slopes. Red for only extreme slopes. Make being overweight required? I don't know. All I know is its just not fun. 2. Please remove cabin fever. There's enough good arguments for this. Surely most players don't like this mechanic? (I'm going to have to play custom from now on just to get around #1 and #2 above.) 3. Slower item decay. It's a bit too unrealistic. 4. Balance indoor / outdoor temp. If it is -40 degrees outside, and inside there is no fire on, but it is stable at -5 or something... this is for me the obvious starting spot to deal with difficulty. Indoor locations are almost always safe / warm so long as you have a minimum amount of clothing. What I would love to see is some coding of insulation, and different locations given a rating. The better the insulation, the better the location holds warmth. The challenge of just keeping warm in the late game, even indoors, should more than make up for removing cabin fever. 5. Wolf behavior rework. Rather than the currently very specific spawn areas, maybe design a system where the map is painted in different colored zones of likelihood, and allow wolfs to spawn and wonder basically anywhere. Tweak by reducing number in map even more potentially if it is too easy to run into them. But have very few areas where you are guaranteed to not meet a wolf. This could be further fleshed out with some different behavior (stalking / watching?) That's it! The game is great. Basically I think it just needs to be more punishing in terms of indoor temps, with some wolf AI rework, and that would add enough challenge that you could then nerf some of the more annoying / artificial stuff like item decay, cabin fever and sprain.