ajb1978

Holy Snot Rocket how did I miss this survey?  I picked Survivor mode, because at its core that's what this game is all about.  I'm a pretty early supporter...not as early as some, but early enough to remember when the game was just Mystery Lake, Pleasant Valley, and Coastal Highway (and the respective transition zones).  I've logged well over 2000 hours of my life playing Survivor mode, and maybe a couple dozen playing Wintermute.

That said, I absolutely enjoy Story mode, in the same sense that I enjoy each of the Challenge modes...even though I haven't touched them in over a year.  I still like them...I still want more...I just don't touch them that often.

TLD inspired me to try canned sardines (not bad if you completely mask the flavor with mustard...but plain out of the can "Last Resort" indeed), as well as reishi, rose hip, and birch bark tea.  Birch bark and rose hip tea I actually rather enjoy, but the reishi...meh I still haven't used up the bag.  When it's gone, I don't feel the need to repeat the experience.  Reishi isn't bad, it just...isn't good either.  Edit: I've heard people recommend mixing reishi with coffee as a dietary supplement.  I've done that, and it does indeed mask the flavor, but I never noticed any effect on my overall well being.  Then again, I never get sick as it is, so maybe someone who is immuno-compromised might have better feedback than I.

The trunk of my car is my emergency kit for the most part.  In it I have an MRE (Menu 5 "Chicken Chunks, White, Cooked" to be specific), claw hatchet, folding saw, tinder box, some waterproof matches, firestriker, charcoal filter, water purification tablets, hexamine fuel tablets, collapsible campfire grill, six 30-minute pyro flares, a basic 8x8 blue tarp, 50' of paracord, a 50' roll of aluminum foil, and a gallon of distilled water.  Also a vacuum-sealed waterproof bag containing a change of clothes, spare shoes, and $500 in cash.  Inside the car, velcroed to the back dash I have a bag containing 6 additional 30-minute flares, and I have a knife, flashlight, and seatbelt cutter in the glove box.  Shoved under the passenger seat I have a fire extinguisher.

Also, a folding camp rocking chair, because if I'm ever stranded at the side of the road, dammit I'm gonna at least be comfortable.

Actually I just thought of something else that's a little inconsistent.  if you line up the regional maps with the world map, using rivers and lakes as guidelines for how to rotate them, we see that there is a big space east of Mountain Town, north of Mystery Lake, and west of Pleasant Valley.  Since Astrid would have exited Milton via that tunnel, she would arrive in this hitherto unrevealed region, which is heavily implied to be Perseverance Mills.  (Based on Jeremiah saying it's a "shit nothing town a few hours north" in predux, and this hypothetical region is indeed due north of Mystery Lake.) And also in predux he gave Will explicit instructions that once in Pleasant Valley to stop at Signal Hill, and if the radio doesn't work, follow the road north to Perseverance Mills.  However...the road does not run north/south, but east/west.... The road itself is north of Signal Hill though, so perhaps that's what he meant.

Anyway this all strongly suggests that Perseverance Mills is the missing region.  So here's the rub: If Astrid was going to so much trouble to get TO Perseverance Mills, why did she instead blow right through it and end up in Pleasant Valley?

The only explanation I can think of is that while Will was grocery shopping for Grey Mother and getting his stab on with the Old Bear, Astrid already had her adventure in Perseverance Mills, and had to proceed to Pleasant Valley for some reason.

When on my 100% Buffer Memory hunt, I actually made a point to live in the cave in the Winding River transition region.  I would pass time outside (to avoid CF) and sleep in the back of the cave in 1 hour increments.  During the day I would scoot through the dam and hunt for food in Mystery Lake, then haul my kill back to the Winding River cave, and wait out the time.  When an aurora hit, I'd head up into the dam, check the computer, and then wait indoors until the aurora ended, to safely exit the dam.

The aurora will appear on average about once every 7 days, although you can increase or decrease this likelihood via a Custom game.

This is what happens after you drop a decoy that you've treated with ghost pepper extract.

In the Milton Mailbag at some point Raph mentioned that he liked the idea of a procedually generated highway, where the player was tasked with traveling 100km down this highway on foot for (insert plot device here).  That, I think, would be a great game to play.  If not a sequel to The Long Dark, a spiritual successor at least.

I think it's safe to say we can rule out procedural generation for the current game.

17 hours ago, ThePancakeLady said:

Well done. I had never noticed or tested in Wintermute for things like this. Wouldn't likely have even thought about it if you had not posted this. 

Everything else condition-wise seemed to carry over? 

I'll have to try some other shenanigans and see what does or does not carry over.  I actually slept off the condition damage from that fall just prior to exiting the transition cave, but if memory serves, you start Episode 2 at 100% condition anyway.  I'm not sure if there's a way I can sprain something after making that final rope climb in Milton.  Something like hypothermia or frostbite would be easy to test though.

Interestingly enough, some things DO carry over.  As a test, just prior to exiting the cave into Mystery Lake and officially ending Episode 1, I lit a fire, and heated up/drank a cup of coffee.  When Episode 2 started, I had the Fatigue Reduced and Warming Up benefits still in play, about half spent.  Seems like this may actually be an oversight when Well Fed was added... I'm going to report this as a bug.

Regarding hitting a wolf with a thrown stone, I've noticed it does not need to be a direct hit.  A ricochet counts as well, so I tend to aim a little low on purpose, so that the stone rolls or bounces into them.  Wolf Bowling, basically.  However a wolf scared by a stone strike will not run as far as  if it were scared off by say a gunshot.  Oftentimes when it stops the flee animation, you will still be within its detection range if you aren't crouched.  So it's a good way to get a wolf off a deer, or to get it to back off for a few seconds so you can engage your cloaking device crouch if it's on your tail.

When I play Wintermute I always start from Episode 1.  I never skip directly to Episode 2.  And I've noticed that the Well Fed buff disappears when Episode 2 starts, necessitating another 3-day ramp up period to obtain it.  I don't know how big an ask this is, but I think it would provide a stronger sense of continuity there if we start Episode 2 in the exact same condition we end Episode 1 in, for better or for worse.

13 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Question from @ajb1978:

Nope, there's nothing I can reveal about that. But it's nice to hear people notice these little details.

*****

Well...at least I can take that as confirmation that it is in fact an Omega symbol!   I'm going to be on the lookout for an Alpha now...  Unless I already saw one and missed it... Now I'm all paranoid, like...normally I play it in-character.  Like I need to find Astrid, I can't afford to dilly-dally around while these rabbit hides cure.  I need to get moving!!

I think I'm going to start up a Green Story mode game with the aim of taking my sweet old time.  Play it like I would Survivor mode, only advancing the plot when I'm confident I've not missed any little detail anywhere...

Should run just fine with those specs.  (I'm assuming you have at least 8gb of system RAM as well.)  You might not be pulling 60fps at 4k, but it should run just fine under normal conditions. You would have to install the game on the new PC normally, but then you can copy your save files from your C:\Users\(your-user-id)\AppData\Local\Hinterland\TheLongDark\ into that same location on the new box.

You Sir and/or Madam, are awesome.  Stay you.

2 hours ago, devamadhu said:

Lol too much mixing of religious metaphors? 😂

Basically my way of smiling and nodding lol

1 hour ago, devamadhu said:

New, safer meat storage options! 

Well done young padawan, this is indeed a useful tactic for meat preservation.

56 minutes ago, devamadhu said:

Worshipping Saint Branch as it ascends into heaven 🙏 

....ok.  I.. ok.

49 minutes ago, Pillock said:

You wouldn't be planning on sharing your save where you've harvested every resource in the entire Gameworld for some poor unsuspecting person to try, would you?

Because they would be quite mean!

Not planning on it no, but I mean that wouldn't be out of the question.  It's kind of up to the sharer what kind of experience they  want to introduce to the sharee.  Personally I'd be rather merciful, probably with the variables tuned to Pilgrim or half Pilgrim half Voyageur, but with specific actions done to tell a story.

24 minutes ago, MarrowStone said:

@ajb1978, does the day length multiplier make you freeze slower? I mean can you travel further without freezing due to time passing slower? I suppose you could probably complete a faux hopeless rescue in less than a day in that case. 

Yes, I would say overall it makes the game MUCH easier.  All of your sub-conditions decrease slower proportionate to the length of day multiplier.  Light sources last longer as well, fires start in less time, etc.  (At 4x time dilation, once you get to level 5 firestarting you can mag lens a fire with a single stick, and immediately harvest a torch without having to add a second stick.)  You still only have 5 seconds on weak ice, but hunting can be much harder because animals take that much extra time to bleed out, if they don't drop in one.  Ropes are unaffected--you can still chew through half your fatigue with two moderate climbs.  (Edit: Sprinting is also unaffected--you still burn up your sprint/climb meter in real-time.  Sprint meter recovery IS affected, so at 4x length of day, expect to spend 4x as long waiting for your meter to recharge.) Condition loss due to a sub-condition hitting zero is also reduced by the length of day modifier, as is condition loss due to a bleeding bite I think.  I haven't actually let a wound bleed long enough to test that one but I would bet on it with 95% confidence.

It objectively makes the game easier, as the benefits to the player far outweigh the two negatives (long bleed-out time and long sprint bar recovery).  But I like being able to use the crackling fire as background noise.  I've literally left the game running overnight in real-time while I slept, because the crackling fire made for nice background noise.  A 12 hour fire burns for 3 real-time hours at 4x.  That 3:1 ratio meant that when I woke up, yeah the fire was out and I had some condition damage from thirst and exhaustion, but I was able to sleep it off back to 100% to save the game, then shut down and get ready for work.  It's great.  Love it.  I'd be all-in on a "real-time" version, where 1 minute is 1 minute.

Edit: As for the faux Hopeless Rescue...maybe.  If you made a point to grab up a few emergency stims, you could hypothetically pull it off in less than a day.  But because each climb still chews up your stamina normally, if you don't find enough e-stims to handle the climbs basically right away, you can't do it in a day.

5 hours ago, ThePancakeLady said:

 I think this is due to the pressurization of the butane gas inside of them, Needs to be warm to turn the liquid into gas, so the striker will ignite it. (Not entirely sure if that is the reason they suck in cold weather though...) Never had luck with Bic or other disposable lighters on winter camping trips, or even for lighting a wood stove in one of the outbuildings on the farm we used to live on, in Pennsylvania winters, which are likely nowhere near as harsh as winters in Northern/Northwestern Canada.

This is precisely why they have problems, however as a former smoker in a region that can get Interloper-level weather in the winter, I know you simply wrap your fist around them for a minute.  Preferably with your fist in your coat pocket  That's all it takes to make them usable again, even when the feels like is -50. (Smokers are stupidly stubborn, but 1996 was brutal even by smoker standards.  Bunch of morons all huddled in a circle, shoulders hunched, kind of penguin shuffling, and the trick was to leave your gloves on, take a plastic fork with one tine broken off, and wedge your cig in there so you could hold it with your gloves or mittens on....ahh, nostalgia...)  So if butane lighters were introduced into the game, I think we could simply have them operate similar to a lightweight diet firestriker.  I know OP has different ideas but I was thinking more like a 100% lighter burns for a half hour if used as a light source, and one that gives you a slight bonus to firestarting.  Because unlike a match for instance, you can have it lit for about 10 minutes straight before the plastic starts to deform from the heat. 

6 hours ago, ThePancakeLady said:

And i am unsure if the alternative "fish-oil/lamp-oil" substitues we have in game would work in a Zippo.

Technically yes, but practically no.  Lamp oil is not volatile enough for the built in striker to ignite, unless it's been preheated somehow.  You can however light it with a separate ignition source, like a match, and it will burn just fine. But a zippo filled with lamp oil can't self-start with the striker alone.  You need something with higher volatility, like naphtha, kerosene, or gasoline.  (Kerosene and gasoline are NOT good long term, but work great in a pinch.)  

1. MAYBE if weak terrain were only in specific areas, and you had a warning similar to weak ice, it could be doable.  But the thought of just walking along and then suddenly you drop through the ground and whoops, now you're dead.  No...  That would piss so many people off if it were something you could do truly by accident.  In order for sinkholes to make sense as a game mechanic, the player must have some sort of warning system to enable them to avoid it.  Falling through should be a consequence of being inattentive (or intentionally falling through, for whatever reason) rather than a bad roll of the dice.  And any such fall should be shallow enough to be survivable unless you're already in very poor condition.  Like no more than 20% condition damage.

2. As a static landscape feature, climbing ropes going straight down into the ground WOULD be pretty cool.  Kind of like that big cave on Timberwolf Mountain, where the bedroll spawns, except with only one way in or out.  Sounds like the kind of thing an NPC might have used as a prepper cache.  Maybe stick a couple crates in the corner, which might contain loot if you take the time to bust them open.

Adding the ability to cauterize a bleeding wound using a lit torch or flare, in exchange for additional condition damage and a Burns affliction, I could get behind.  Overhauling the bleeding mechanics because....realism I guess?....I don't quite see how that would improve the game.  Injury management, hunger management, etc. are things that are I think best handled at a very high level.  You're hungry, eat calories.  We don't need to track individual vitamins.  Similarly, you're bleeding, use a bandage.  I don't think we necessarily need to get into severity of the bleed-out.

But cauterizing, yeah I could get on board with that.  I've suggested that myself in the past.

Have you tried loading the game on a fresh boot?  Some users (myself included) have had issues running the game if the PC has been left on for an extended period of time.

11 hours ago, ThePancakeLady said:

We take turns playing the same character.

I wonder if there'd be enough interest in that kind of play to take it global/international.  @Admin please let me know if this would be out of line or not, but do you think there would be any interest in a thread where people post copies of their survivor mode saves, that others can download and pick up?  You don't know what experience mode you're in for, where the previous person left off, or how much of the world has been cleared.  You could get a general sense of how long they've played, based on the file size of the save, but that's about it.

Eeh sorry I'm not sure how much help I'm gonna be here.  I remember it did require a lot of goating around, but I eventually got it filled in.  I couldn't tell you exactly where or how though.  I do know that the spot to the southeast of Katie's Secluded Corner can be cleared though.  Desolation Point has some weird elevation shenanigans going on to where something that looks like you should be able to fill it in, stays completely dark.  Even if you're right in the friggen middle of it.  So I don't bother with it so much anymore.  Same way with the Winding River region, where charcoal doesn't seem to play by anybody's rules anymore.

3 hours ago, rancid0 said:

great idea! you put alot of thought into this, i've had a similar idea of hinterland adding a warmer wetter region to the game where we'd get thunderstorms instead of blizzards which is less ambitious but would probably be easier to implement.   

I don't think any of this would be anything short of impossible to implement at this point.  The Long Dark is a great game, but one written with a very specific environment in mind. And all of this...well...it would basically require an entirely new game.  

But it'd be pretty damn cool if it existed

1 hour ago, Khan_Drichthyes said:

Two words:  Aurora Mosquitoes 😋

I...no.  No.  No.  No man. No.  Hell no. No.  NO.
NO.
No. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
No.

This post is inspired by this lovely 45 degree day (114F)...bleh.  So this is a total hypothetical, but say the game supported all four seasons.  Obviously we know how winter would behave, because...well..that's what we have.  But what changes do you think Spring, Summer, and Autumn would bring?  This isn't a wish list item by any means, I just like to think about stuff like this for the sake of thinking about it.

My thoughts:

Spring: Ambient temps may be above freezing during the day, dipping below freezing at night.  Wetness becomes a major concern, and thawing would mean more weak ice, possibly rendering Jackrabbit Island and Misanthrope's Homestead inaccessible without using the boats.  On days where the ambient temperature is above freezing, wet clothing never freezes, and you can dry out clothing by walking around outside, or dropping it on the ground.  However your temperature sub-condition can still drop to zero, presenting you with Hypothermia Risk, although you do not suffer freezing damage.  Paved areas (and icy areas in general) become treacherous with an increased chance of falling and spraining something, due to the layer of ice that builds up from the freeze/thaw day and night cycle.  Some of the snow starts to melt, revealing the grass and dirt underneath.  On dark nights, this creates areas where the ground is essentially pure black, and you can't necessarily see what's right in front of you.  Some areas become particularly muddy, slowing you way down as you slog through the mire.

Summer: The most profound changes to gameplay.  Travel at night is dangerous, as the snow is all gone.  Unless you're in an open field under a full moon, everything is nearly pitch black.  The moonlight helps in the open, but thick foliage in the forests presents some extremely hazardous hiking conditions.  Predators can detect you easily, but you don't see them until they're on top of you.  Avoid forests at night!  Cold is no longer a concern.  Now, your battle is with insects, sunburn, and heatstroke.  This turns the temperature gauge on its head, to where keeping it as low as possible is preferred.  If your Feels Like is 25C or above, you start to get warmer.  Although the wind still helps to cool you down, Heat Index is now a thing: humid days make your Feels Like go up.  The higher the Feels Like, the quicker you overheat.  If it fills up completely, you are afflicted with Heat Exhaustion, which results in your Thirst decreasing twice as fast, and an automatic scent line due to your profuse sweating.  Left untreated, after 2 hours it escalates to Heat Stroke, which results in your Fatigue decreasing twice as fast, and 20% condition loss per hour.  Cooling off can be done by spending time indoors, passing time in the shade, or by going for a swim.  You can also sacrifice 1L of water by dumping it over your head, to take a small chunk out of your heat meter.  Lowering your temperature below maximum halts Heat Stroke damage, although you must keep it from maxing out for 4 consecutive hours, while avoiding Dehydration to cure it.  Walking around with little on means you overheat slower, however exposed skin is at risk for sunburn similar to frostbite, although sunburn damage can be healed with time.  You can no longer "melt snow".  You must now gather water from a source, be it a pond or stream, and then it must be filtered and boiled.  (Necessitating the crafting of a filter using a recycled can, sand, stones, charcoal, and cloth.)   You can also sterilize this crudely filtered water by leaving it outside for a total of 48 daylight hours (UV sterilization).  Also, certain areas become hotspots for insect swarms, particularly in the Muskeg.  Insect swarms cause 2% condition loss per hour per area of uncovered skin, as a result of stings and bites.  This also carries with it a risk of contracting a general sickness that slowly damages condition, but heals naturally over time.  Water is now warm enough that you can swim, provided you are not encumbered.  Wearing wet clothing keeps you cool longer, at the expense of additional weight.  You can now also fish anywhere there is water and your feet are touching the ground.  Rivers, lakes, ponds, the coast--the world is your oyster.  Natural medicine, cat tails, and saplings respawn.  The ice fishing huts and all they contained have broken through the ice, and are forever lost.  This would necessitate some kind of ice fishing overhaul, allowing you to bust a hole anywhere for the following winter.  Beachcombing becomes incredibly easy, as items literally wash up on the beach now, to be safely grabbed.  Better stock up on those "nonrenewables" before winter....

Autumn: Similar to Spring, temps may be above freezing during the day, and below freezing at night.  All the leaves on the ground mean you make more noise than usual when traveling through the forest, causing wildlife to sense your presence from twice as far away when not crouched.  Also, as everything is trying to fatten up for the winter, predators are a little more aggressive than normal, but all animals have more meat on them than in other seasons.  Otherwise, pretty much identical to Spring.