Dan_

Wow, just caught up on your adventures. Haven't played the update since the release day and boy, did they just wreck deadman with the bark tea, huh? You can make a very convincing deadman-lite ( barkman? ) mode with the new features but it just lost that appeal of "once my health and stims are gone, they are GONE" that the original deadman had. This makes me sad. Still, I guess it's a foregone conclusion that regular loper players are a small minority of the player base, and Loper+ adventurers like us are an even smaller niche. I'd just like them to provide options within the custom game structure to parametrize the new features as well. No reason it can't be done, other than the target audience is very small.

Removing the campfires is more about preserving the beauty of the scenery. It would be great if we had the option to clean the visual pollution.

My 700+ hours in TLD beg to differ. Maybe it's just not the type of game for you, and that's fine. I can relate to that, I bought two others copies for friends and they do not take interest in this game that is the absolute number one in my steam library. Saying nothing relevant has changed in three years is quite a stretch but this is a free world and everybody is allowed an opinion, I disagree strongly with your progress assessment as far as updating the game goes, but then again, expectations are very much are one's own. Maybe buying a game in alpha is something you should reconsider in a future opportunity. Cheers!

What more can I say? Sprain system, very intuitive and works beautifully ( goaters, beware! Just got back from Goatwolf Mountain, I feel sore ). Adressing the sprains? Even better, there's the option to treat the pain or tough it out paying a price in skill proficiency with weapons. A use for birch bark, awesome and gives me a blue'ish gray mug to improv base décor, 10/10. Improvised rags was requested by many so hooray, I probably won't use them since there's rabbit stuff which is better and more stylish. Maybe I'll use the rags if I'm roleplaying a hobo. New fluid animal movement is awesome, I shot a bear and he booked up a hill pushing from the hind legs and looking, well, like a bear fleeing from a threat. Wolves stop and pay attention, and even their sprint has a little build-up acceleration that looks the part. New sound design ( you guys can't sneak sound improvements without us noticing ) is fantastic, with added ambient noises ( specially at night ). Improving perhaps one of the strongest suits in the game. Again, bravo. And that majestic revolver... Man, in a short time I hunted a bear, deer and rabbit with it. It's not as good as the rifle to hunt ( as designed ) but still feels phenomenal to use. The draw speed is what fascinates me, it's quick as you'd expect from something that may save your life in a split second decision, makes a glorious noise, the modelling and texturing looks superb... It's effing awesome, it's what it is. I'm a devout interlopist but I will make a custom StalkerLoper just to live with it a little longer. Awesome stuff, 10/10 guys.

Thnaks for the update, can't wait to get home and enjoy it!

Yep, this was my last feat as well, took some good 3 years to get it. This is heavily dependent on your playstyle, since early game I torch travel a lot and prioritize reading the firestarting books I usually get towards firestarting level 3 relatively quickly, so I don't grind because firestarting 3 is already great for the small duration bonus and no requirement for tinder. That said, there's nothing wrong with grinding if having all feats is something you covet. Not everybody can or wants to sink 700+ hours(I did) into this game playing regularly, so these people would never get the feat if they didn't grind. PS: The feat is not that good to be honest, I don't remember ever using it since I got it.

Excellent stuff! Gave us plenty of insight into creative process that goes into the game, without spoiling or giving away anything juicy about the forthcoming update. You've answered to the wrong Dan though ( I'm Dan_ , because I'm very creative when it comes to forum aliases, and Dan was taken... ), but thanks for the info. I guess as long as Unity doesn't make progress towards enabling better performance on that particular console my fourth TLD copy will have to wait for a bit. Great stuff, thanks for taking the time to answer so many questions. Here's some big moose kicks, on me.

I loathe wasting meat on any of the animals I put down, so I always make a point to harvest and if possible cook all the meat I get. Suffice to say everytime I killed a bear before the cooking update a boring and repetitive harvesting and cooking marathon ensued. The new update solved this beautifully with the ability to collect firewood and have multiple items and on multiple campfires to accelerate this process, while cook-harvesting the rest of the meat. Honestly, I think this was the single best change Hinterland has done to the game since I've been playing it ( Circa 2015, Desolation Point Update ). I respect the OP's patience to give it a try but you'll eventually get used to the cooking times so keep at it(plus they'll go down dramatically as the cooking skill improves). If the long cooking times ever become a problem, move somewhere with a six hob stove. Problem solved.

I assume they want to keep support fully online in case any game breaking bugs or issues stem from the update, it would be hard on the team to demand full support on the weekend. It would be sweet to have it erady to enjoy on the weekend though. I'm curious to see if Interloper will get the revolver, the flare gun is already my close combat weapon of choice. Interesting to see if the revolver mimics this functionality or if it brings anything else to the table.

I know this gets asked a lot but how is the switch version coming along? I understand there is a need to keep the visuals close to what a good PC can achieve but I'd trade some of the visual flair for the opportunity to play one of my favourite games in any impromptu free time. I've seen how taxing SSAO can be to the PC version, I could without it for example. I'm leaning towards getting a switch and TLD would be the ultimate deal sweetener for me. Thanks!

I'm pretty sure that consolidating the items would also help with scene optimization. Straight YES from me.

Boy, how wrong was this dumb dude I'm quotin' here? ☝️ Sucks to see such a good run go so abruptly, kinda of a bummer really. I was getting the deadman itch again but I don't feel so good about it right now.

I concur with this. I don't understand the fetish to save coal by using a ton of sticks to heat up a furnace. I've seen countless streamers do it and I still think it's a waste of time. By the time I go back to FM for another forge run, the coal have respawned and there is easily at minimum 15 pieces of coal already respawned between the caves in FM alone. The trade off of 80 sticks for 4 pieces of coal as a means of optimizing or "min-maxing" fuel is just absurd. It makes no difference in the short or in the long run. It's even more absurd in Desolation Point, where coal is plentiful and sticks relatively scarce. With firestarting level 5 it is impossible given that 80 sticks will give you 15 hours of fire(10 hours at lvl 1 firestarting), unless you're sleeping on that fire you pretty much just wasted fuel. / rant I'm in full agreement with the OP in regards to tinder's patent uselessness. All options presented in this thread are good and viable. I personally like the idea of providing a modest temperature increase like the suggested 0.5ºC. Other than that, we could use them to craft tinder bundles ( mixing up bark, cat tail heads and plugs for instance ) that speed up the firestarting process, etc. Plenty of good possibilities to overhaul the firemaking mechanic.

Maybe the bear will prove to be a blessing in disguise to rabbit whisperer deadman? Ace writing as always, thanks for sharing! / Back to lurk mode.

It's just when the contents boil dry, I believe is 10% condition lost when it happens. Had that happen to me recently, some of my cans are looking a bit rough. Day 34, I think it's fair to say you are the Forlorn's legitimate emperor, hats off my friend.

I suspect most of the additions will be relevant to chapter 3 in some sense, meaning the clothing and food item might be used as plot points for Astrid. I have a small sliver of hope that the new clothing item will be craftable(wolfskin long scarf, rabbit earmuffs? ), but logic says otherwise. It might very well be Astrid's green scarf or some sort of accessory, maybe even mathis' awesome sheepskin jacket. I would love to get at least a vague feeler of the date though, I know people bitch about missing deadlines and stuff, but not having any clue of any possible timeframe is even worse to me.

Pay attention to your condition, pretty much anything can take you down if you're under half, rest and recover before proceeding to more dangerous endeavours. Other than that, pick up sticks. This is TLD's only true golden rule. Sticks respawn with the blizzards, even if you don't need them now just pick'em and drop the bundle at convenient spots like caves, outside stoves, fishing huts and fire barrels.

Yep, the rope going to ML is much shorter than the rope towards the park office. This looks every bit as brutal as deadman.

That makes sense, I stayed 20 days in Coastal Highway to constant blizzards and the occasional nice day peppered in, then I moved to DP and the weather was surprisingly nice most of the time.

Impressive, I wonder when you'll hit the last two firestarting levels and get that bigger duration bonus. That could be a game changer in regards to keeping you a net positive in firewood reserves. I must confess I'm surprised by the wind behaviour in FM in this run, I wonder if they changed it but before HRV came out FM was the windiest and most miserable place to torch travel. I couldn't keep a torch lit unless i travelled in heavy fog.

It was random, occasionally there would be a corpse on that rocky alcove to the right of the fenced path leading up to the tower, that corpse had a chance to have a firestriker, that was many updates ago though. I haven't found it in ages, though I usually do not do many loper starts, my only two survivors are 300+ days old.

There is a way to make this strategy work, you just need to luck out on getting a pack of matches from the green containers at the shortwave tower, then sleep in the pickup truck by Milton Basin, there's food and firewood by the cave and the rocky refuge and plenty of rosehip for sprains. EDIT: That said, I used to get a random firestriker from a corpse under the little rock alcove on the creek side of the tower, but I haven't found him in ages. Did hinterland remove that firestriker spawn?

In the March dev diary you've mentioned the team is hard at work on a new region for survival mode but it most likely would not be ready for the forthcoming update. Can you confirm we won't have the new region when the update drops or can I still maintain a sliver of hope it might come in this update? I'm already pretty happy with the prospect of a revolver, new clothing and food item BTW. Anything else would be a major plus.

Great run, hopefully rescue comes soon and she gets to retire in a warm and non-wolfey beach somewhere on the tropics.

"Wolf Close Encounters: 99". Yep, this is really not for the faint of heart. Impressive run.