jhickie

I'm a bit more active on the Steam forums, and posted this over there recently. Someone suggested I post it over here as well.

I've been back to snowboarding now that the sweet snow is falling again, and just got back from a trip over the weekend. I noticed a couple of things that reminded me of The Long Dark, and I thought I'd share.

Icy Roadway
This road reminded me a bit of a couple of spots in PV.

Covered Railroad Tracks
Definitely gave me a ML or CH vibe.. it would be cool to see covered tracks in a future region, these are very common in the Sierras.

One Tree Cave
My friends and I call this One Tree Cave. It's accessible at a certain resort only under the right snow conditions. Got this picture from the ski lift. Definitely reminds me of one of the many caves we come across on Great Bear Island.

Here's an earlier shot, you can see the cave up on the right. It's steeper than it looks.. 

That dream you were having where you were having drinks at the bar with friends? Yeah, that was actually you sleepwalking to your fridge. Your rum is gone LOL.

The new challenge is a tough one for sure. Took me a few tries before I completed it. They should make it an achievement.. I'd like to see what percentage of TLD players finish it.

Keep us posted on your progress! I'm curious to see how this slightly more guarded and methodical approach works. I usually GTFO of BI as fast as I can. My goal is to sleep the first night at the leaf bed in the transition cave.

The grave marker is at Many Falls Vista, right near the rope going down into the basin. When the path splits, take the left branch and you will come to it at a dead end. No pun intended. 😂

18 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

This is with Pilgrim loot settings.  Interloper loot settings are generally less fruitful on average... Do MRE's even ever spawn in Loper?  Last interloper time for me was a whetstone and a sewing kit.  Nevertheless,  the crate always has contained some relatively good loot for me.  It has never come up empty.  I have had the Pork & Beens one come up empty though.

Yep, no MREs on Loper. I miss peanut butter and energy bars too. That box will just have the stim on Loper, although sometimes it's not there. If it's not there, it can be in one of the other two spots, or both of them. On a lucky RNG spawn, you will  get all 3 in BR. I have come up empty on the nearby food crate before as well, but I would say it's there like 75% of the time for me.

BR Ravine stim is the fun one to get. That might be the longest rope climb in the whole game.

On 1/4/2020 at 3:18 PM, Ice Hole said:

Make sure you grab a few Ribena.  I hear that in the U.K. they changed the recipe. 

Still sweet nectar in my part of Canada.

The only time I went to Canada, I noticed a prevalence of grape flavored things. Everything from drinks to donuts to candy bars with grape jelly inside of them. What gives? I was very confused.

Aside from that, absolutely beautiful country, very friendly people, and the weather's not too bad if you keep to the coast. Did a road trip from Seattle to Anchorage.

On 1/3/2020 at 10:53 AM, MrWolf said:

That is true - the campfire no longer works, a moose will run right through it to greet you.

Good to know, I've been wondering. So that about does it.. they've made all dangerous animals unafraid of fire. Just the way nature intended?

There is a technique that still allows campfires to scare off wolves, although it's a bit more involved than just lighting a fire. Bears never cared and still don't. Moose now join the bear club. I haven't hunted a moose since the update. Good times ahead.

2 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

I don't know why you'd have no luck with it.  It hasn't failed me yet and I've even seen Atheenon get loot from that crate during his recent As the Dead Sleep attempts.  Out of curiosity, I tested it this morning (new BR start); and here's a  screenshot showing my the loot:

 

The stim in that box is one of the 8-10 guaranteed stims in the game. I haven't seen confirmation on any stims in BI, and although I found one in the new challenge, I can't remember where or verify if it's in survival mode. While the other 7 stims are always in the same spot (with some local variation), there can be 1 to 3 stims in BR. Knowing these stim locations is crucial to survival in As The Dead Sleep and Deadman mode.

That MRE looks delicious.. been a while since I've seen one of those!

Hate it when this happens! I've had a run of bad luck with deer on the ice lately. I swear the bow hits have been nerfed a bit with this recent update, because I used to be a one-shot killer with deer but now it seems even perfect shots sometimes result in deer taking off with your arrow. When I find them, sometimes it's only the antlers poking out of the ice and nothing to harvest. Super frustrating.. loss of time, meat, and arrows.

My other favorite is when you shoot something on the ice, only to have it come to rest on thin ice where you can't harvest it. Nearly lost a bear at DP recently due to this.

There are several crates in the game that have guaranteed goodies in them. I always work them into my early game loot routine.

• BR Shed, as described previously by @ThePancakeLady. (2 crates, food and stim/gear)
• FM Spence's, near the safe (dog food or accellerant)
• TWM Hut, in the corner near the door (soda)
• DP Hibernia, to the left after entering large downstairs room (canned food)
• TWM Summit, plane (loot/clothes)

I'm sure there's some that I'm forgetting 

Loper 600+ day run currently still going. Got all the achievements like Frustrated Cartographer long ago, so doing personal challenges now. Did the "50 Days per Region" challenge recently on this run, and looking for my next challenge. I'm hoping to get to 1000 days on Loper for my first time ever. Pretty well set with main base stashes, tons of water and skins, cattail stores totaling 500+, 3 bows and 50 arrows, 13 boxes of matches still, and plenty of crafting supplies. Been practicing with the new wolfies near my CH base at Fishing Camp. Now focusing on clearing all natural resources from each region, just cleared ML and planning on CH next.

I'm extremely conflicted about the revolver being added to Loper.

On one hand, it's like how the hell do we deal with these timberwolves? Nearly impossible to hit with the bow, very erratic pathing, hit-and-runs, pack hunting and morale, fire doesn't work, bait doesn't work... Really, the only thing I've had any luck with is those marine flares, and even then that just buys you some time. I want to kill these jerks, not just run away. A gun would help.

On the other hand, I think guns go against the spirit of Loper. Flare gun is already too much, firearms of any kind seem to be at odds with the "craft everything you can to survive" mentality of Loper. I was hoping for the bear spear. This was a shocking discovery. Dozens (hundreds?) of Loper runs with me never once thinking, "I could use a gun". The only time I've fired the revolver was EP3, and I can't remember the last time I fired the rifle.

Much like @Salty Crackers said, I think the only way Lopers will be ok with the revolver being introduced into our world is if it's a fully crafted solution, like the bow and arrows. I would take it a step further, though. As in, any revolver you find should be broken and unusable. You should need to find everything to craft bullets, and there should be no usable bullets in the world, only casings. The hope is that, much like crafting the bow and arrows at the forge, you should need to visit BI at some point to fix your gun and craft your bullets. You should NOT be able to use the revolver without a trip to BI's cannery.

I've been exploring BI on a custom spawn, but I think it's time to fire up my 580 day Loper run and start exploring for revolver stuff. I'm interested to see how this shakes out.

8 hours ago, zacccoboy123 said:

I defo have seen a chocolate bar in a visor, 7 to 8 months ago.

May we see a screenshot of this, please?

Just voted. In my nearly 4 years of playing this game, I have never, ever found anything there. I've heard tales of lore regarding fantastic visor caches full of many glorious items, but that was back in very Early Access. I guess I was just never lucky enough to come across any. Those things have been empty for years since.

On 11/27/2019 at 2:13 PM, hozz1235 said:

I once found a note that said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

STOP CHECKING THE VISORS - THERE IS NOTHING HERE!!

 

On 11/30/2019 at 6:41 PM, turtle777 said:

It’s still a secret, but in a future update, Fluffy will spawn from underneath a visor. Be afraid, be very afraid. 

-t

I really hope they take either of you up on your ideas 😄

On 11/16/2019 at 8:32 AM, ManicManiac said:

In 5 years, I have never found anything under the visors... but I will check them forever because Hinterland does occasionally make "stealth changes."

Besides, it's just part of the ritual now... and nowadays I use them to mark cars (because of that one time I almost died because the hood was up and I couldn't see snarling death waiting just outside - after that, no more lifted hoods).
 

Ahhh... I've been marking my cars with the open hood forever. Now I'm paranoid after reading this! Maybe I'll just start going with the trunk instead. I like having something I can see at a little distance.

On 12/6/2019 at 6:37 PM, ThePancakeLady said:

There is a certain someone on Steam who now refers to all corpses he finds as "JayXL" in his screenshots.  

It's a great honor  

I have issues with plant harvesting. I harvest all cattails, mushrooms, rosehips, etc. even if I don't need them. Just something about the game giving us resources and me not taking them seems wrong.. I'm compulsive in this regard.

I'm at nearly 600 days in my current run, and I'm trying to harvest all plants on Great Bear Island. I've gotten all of the cattails (have stashes of hundreds at multiple bases), mushrooms, and rosehips, and I have nearly all of the saplings. Only thing left in any volume is old man's beard, and I have a lot of that to harvest still. At this point in my run, after accomplishing my 50 days per region, it's my main personal objective.

I was just reminded to re-harvest PV since the update... another objective to add to my list! 😄

10 hours ago, MarrowStone said:

Fluffy may be confirmed as not dead, but it was never confirmed where exactly she was. The only evidence we went off of was the wolf in the ice cave appeared alongside her disappearance. 

True, all we know is Fluffy was relocated, per Raph's tweet. Some of us call the wolf at HRV Sketchy, some of us call it Fluffy 2.0, some of us have made up our own name for it as well. One thing's for sure though, Fluffy isn't dead. 

Raph likes to watch us debate these details, he almost never gives us hard facts. 😄

On 12/3/2019 at 8:22 AM, RegentRelic said:

Fluffy died in side the dame as we see in wintermute.

Sorry, no. This has already been answered, so many times.  @ThePancakeLady posted the only answer that matters, straight from Raph. Check the Twitter link.

On 9/11/2019 at 6:35 PM, ThePancakeLady said:

We have not lost Fluffy. This gets brought up, a ton. I asked Raphael about it on twitter after the update 2 years ago (my gawd, time flies...), and here is his response: https://twitter.com/evilginger013/status/893311638648082432?s=20

  Hide contents

 

4 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

Yeah definitely brew tea/coffee separately and pour into the mug.  Another thing to consider, metal mugs hemorrhage heat very quickly.  Your drinks will cool off in record time, and as a consequence, the mug may also be literally too hot to handle after pouring your drink.  Might need to wear gloves, or use a hot pad or something.

I can confirm. I have the Hinterland logo mug and take it camping with me. It conducts heat like you wouldn't believe. Great for early morning coffee when it's still chilly out, gloves do help. 

On 11/2/2019 at 12:46 PM, DaPepster said:

.......needs peanut butter.  ALL the peanut butter~ 

"These pretzels are making me thirsty"

Seriously though, it would be awesome if we got some kind of bonus for combining food items, like peanut butter and crackers. Sardines and crackers? Tomato soup and crackers? Crackers seem to go with everything. Granola bar and coffee? Put some condensed milk in my coffee and pretend it's a latte? The possibilities are endless.

3 hours ago, turtle777 said:

Stash it until level 5, then eat it. 
You can eat cooked 0% meat - no problem. 
Non-meat items are safe to eat at 0%.

 

-t

This 1000%. Never throw away 0% food items, you can always eat them one day. Food is at a premium, at least on Loper. Voyager, however, is a grocery store.

On 11/1/2019 at 12:45 AM, matchstick said:

First game, Voyageur, day 212. I cleared hydro damn, mystery lake and Milton. Now I've got to travel back to Costal where I started. Moose satchel is equipped. Any ideas of a good way to get most of this there?

Like I was saying lol..  You'll never use half of that stuff! 

Definitely set up bases or caches in each region, it will minimize the need to haul all of that stuff around.

5 hours ago, Alone said:

This should be rather easy

 

 

At first I thought it might be the trailer on the hike up to Cinder Hills mine, but after further review I believe it's the first trailer down the hill from the Log Sort, to the left of the bend in the road.

Nice pic!

23 hours ago, StoneyWolf said:

Im 99.9% sure theres no guarantee for any in ML but I always seem to find a lot and ya sometimes they might be in the container not on the shelf so technically it's possible to find 2 box's in that spot and I'm pretty sure I have before. I'd love to know what your test runs find. 

No guaranteed match spawns in ML. 

Places I've found matches in ML:

• Dam on shelf near back door
• Dam in cabinet in room with elevator
• Dam on shelf in room adjacent to lobby
• Lookout Tower near Camp Office
• On cabinets in multiple ice huts on Mystery Lake
• On table in cabins on Mystery Lake
• On table inside of trailers at Logging Camp
• Deer blind near Alan's cave
• Firestriker in cave above Camp Office

Not saying I find them here all the time, but I have found them in all of these places at one time or another over the years.

2 hours ago, Adamchapa said:

Where exactly are the three locations in the processing plant? Honestly I've done a handful of loper runs through there and never once found matches. I try to avoid the region for that exact reason.

• Upstairs on the table near the lockers
• Upstairs on the table in the office
• Upstairs on the bottom shelf of the table

Some people also swear you can find them downstairs at the workbench, but I've never found them there. All the location pictures are in that linked thread.

@Ernesto_Sorona While I have found matches many times at the locations you listed, I don't believe all of the locations you listed are actually 100% guaranteed spawns.

Nice! I'm a big fan of custom challenges. I really like your descriptions, like a movie tagline with game mode highlights. Nicely done, @jeffpeng

I might have to give Outcast a go. It sounds like Deadman with a little recovery and less animals. I'll likely turn the rifle off though, I only use guns for 4DoN and Story mode.

Thanks for posting these!  

28 minutes ago, Looper said:

Guaranteed spawns isn't about longevity its about getting water and teas in the early days. Because of the healing it's not a huge deal in interloper, but actually in my deadman runs I think I find ML starts the most challenging for that reason. 

I wouldn't disagree with this at all. ML on Loper can be frustrating if you don't find matches, the Dam is pretty much your only source of toilet water. Of course, on vanilla Loper you don't get to start in ML, MT, or CH. If you get to MT or CH relatively quickly, you can live on toilet water for quite some time.

My quote regarding excessive matches was more of an aside. The meat of my post was that it's hard to come up with zero matches in a region.. they're always somewhere. But yes, getting to that first box is very important, and it helps to know where the guaranteed spawns are.

They post the release notes, but yeah these aren't a traditional changelog. I feel like they do this on purpose. They want us to know that they clearly addressed some things and changed them, but other things they change without telling us so we can figure it out for ourselves. Sometimes, this can be fun! Other times, it can be maddening.

As for this change specifically, I'm all for it. I also hated having to lose condition while my fire got mature enough to accept my coal. Hopefully, it was intentional, and it's not an error that they eventually "fix".