UTC-10

Why would the devs choose to introduce such a device into survival mode gameplay? Since game-play tends to be predicated on the character being aware and careful, so thereby avoiding bear attack, the provision of a special purpose device for one specific purpose may seem to be a significantly lower priority than many other possible things. There would also be the necessity to work out how such a device would be used, how effective it would be under various circumstances, and the consequences that may result from it not working. Not to say that they would never introduce such a device into the game, but the incentives for them to develop such a device for the game seem to weigh against it for now.

The only legacy save game wipe I recall was when Hinterland decided to redo the manner in which the save games were handled. Any future occurrence would likely entail a much more substantial structural change in the game that renders the previous save games substantially or completely invalid than any kind of updates or new game mechanics. I can't say that something like that couldn't happen, but I don't worry about it at all though I would be upset if it was for anything less than some HUGE structure change.

I don't believe that they will send you an email about whether the issue was fixed. At least, I have never seen that. You'll find out if there eventually is a hotfix or maintenance update for the game but not before.

Quartering was the mechanic that Hinterland produced to answer the suggestion "I want to move the carcass" in a way that was consistent (as best I can tell) with the existing game mechanics for carrying things. Presumably, the bags consisting of meat and bones rather than just meat was likely the devs forestalling any "the bag only contains meat why do I have to harvest it?" complaints. They also probably thought it was realistic since quartering was not going to be harvesting. The hide and guts being then available for picking up, after quartering, was likely their concession to not making things too complex. There would be a point at which the costs of quartering could be made too high for it to be a viable game mechanic. The number of bags will be variable as the limiting factor would be that, at worst, a single bag must be something a character, without buffs, can actually be expected to pick up and move with.

The older drawn maps were put into the game before the geography got rearranged and their orientation per what we see on the screen not completely fixed. Even for the "world" map, and for many regions, the convention of the top of the map being North does not apply. Even the movement of the sun across the sky is sometimes right sometimes wrong. The newer maps, such as Ash Canyon, should be more consistent with where North is, but there is no guarantee of that. Because I have been in the game for a long time, where North is and how the sun tracks across the sky from dawn to dusk can be an anomaly but it does not really affect how I play. I do occasionally take screenshots of how the sun seems to be setting in the East on occasion but that's me. Probably one reason why no compass implementation. Players would expect consistency with North on a compass being, at least, roughly the same as that of the maps.

The scope of Story mode would limit the degree of changes in weather/season since Story mode deals with a specific period of time. Until the story that the devs wanted to tell concludes, the weather and conditions would not be expected to change. Now, once story mode is no longer a factor and time can progress then we might start to see new things including seasons, new seasonal mechanics, and seasonal changes in the landscape as a result, assuming that the game world development continues. So there would be nothing wrong with seasons though I imagine the phrase "mission creep" might apply.

I have been marking cars and trucks that do not have a car battery or if I took the car battery for the lead plates. I would like the map to show more detail of where the various marks of a group of markings are laid out. Probably too much to expect to get. Perhaps the discrete marks could be a bit more discriminating about what constitutes a close group of marks. I have been marking bridges in Ash Canyon and the first wood arch bridge to the Gold mine located along the path to Miner's Folly does not show the two marks I put there at either end of the bridge (I use first aid and hunting ground) but a listing.

I have found that if the moose is "wounded" emitting relatively constant sounds [as if in distress], as opposed to when it is just threatening, that a second good hit seems to be much more effective at taking it down. Of course, YMMV. Good luck.

I would guess that spray paint would play a role in episode 4 or at least that was the idea. Its use to mark and "label" locations just point to a quest of "search for resources and mark them for later recovery". That does not mean such a quest is going to be in episode 4, but perhaps just an idea. I have used spray paint as [charcoal] map-related navigation aids. In Ash Canyon, I mark the ends of the various bridges, locations like Angler's Den, and even climbing points and some points of interest. The fact that eventually these marks will fade is a bit of a disappointment but I don't make the rules. I did find that they can highlight when the [charcoal] map was wrong with respect to where something like a bridge was actually located. It did help me figure out a Vista point. For now, while they last, these marks will not get swept up (I would expect) in case a Lost and Found event occurs like all my cattail head, tinder plug, charcoal, and stone trails got swept up. Otherwise, the spray paint markings really don't seem to serve much of any useful purpose as markings per se in survival mode.

It has been an issue for players for a long time - the transfer of lantern fuel back and forth between containers. I would think it probably goes back to what was likely a reasonable dev assumption that, as opposed to water, the players would not have a lot of lantern fuel (it was kerosene back then and irreplaceable except by finding drops) so there was no need to provide for a means to consolidate it and even when it changed to "lamp oil" and could be harvested by cooking fish, the devs never revisited the matter. It would be nice if they did but, given all the demands on their time and the game is not "broken" by its lack, they probably viewed it as a very low priority at this time.

Doh, "I did NOT WANT to put out incorrect information". 😓

The harvesting process can be stopped by hitting ESC or the Cancel button anytime before the process reached completion. It leaves the item untouched. Perhaps one of the times when having to get to task completion to get the result of the task was beneficial in case of mistakes. I tried it out to make sure since I did put out incorrect information and, after repeated "harvestings" that I aborted before completion the ragged scarf I was using, as test subject, was intact. It might be nice if the the item being harvested was visible while the process arrow goes around. After all, the character would be able to see what was being harvested.

The devs seemed to not want people to get into a "my meter just went red now I better fix that right now or I will die very very quickly". It would get in the way of playing story mode - though story mode typically should have sufficient supplies - so we get a relatively slow degradation of Condition (which determines when one dies). People who play only survival mode do find the slow degradation/impact of red meters to be unreasonably unrealistic but the devs obviously do not want to spend time on upsetting the game balance as they see. After story mode concludes, we could see in further development things change. The Long Dark II might become a very different game from The Long Dark.

When doing a second vista polaroid at the wolf jaws overlook area, I could see the inaccessible plateau. I know I looked at how to approach it and I marked my closest approach. It might be possible to get a little bit farther but I was disinclined to try as going any further did not look possible. This would look like the kind of place where a "free climbing route" to/from it would seem reasonable at some point.

A warning about harvesting any clothes seems a bit to "guardian angel" like for the game. A limitation that clothing items that were equipped cannot be mended or harvested seems more practical and in keeping with the "let the players do what they want and suffer the consequences for the decision" aspect of the game. It won't get unnecessarily in the way of harvesting clothing and would be more transparent, once players understand the change in the mechanic. That's about as far as the game might go for I vaguely recall seeing players (on videos) occasionally harvesting items that they wanted to keep and that were not equipped because they were not paying attention to what they were doing. The game's protecting players from themselves should only go so far.

I think, the basic answer would be that new bows and arrows do not add enough to the game to justify the effort needed by the devs to incorporate them into the game. Their efforts would be mostly centered on bringing out the last two episodes of Wintermute and, while that does not preclude new things, they have to think about the ramifications of any new item that they choose to introduce. We just get to play in the game with whatever implementation they come up with. They have to figure everything out and make it work in the game world. The Bear Spear which they had thought to bring into the regular survival mode play, after introducing it into story mode play, apparently proved to be more difficult to integrate into survival game play than they probably originally anticipated. There is always the danger that any new item might break game mechanics. They might be of the mind, tread very carefully for we don't want to break the game and then have to fix it in order to continue story mode. This is how I view the situation. You may disagree. If the devs introduced crossbows, etc. I would not complain at all but I don't think they will anytime soon.

You can actually hit things farther away than you might think with the rifle and revolver, it is just not a certainty. Stand on the bluffs near the Hunting Lodge and you can hit the bear that is ambling around on the snow below (note I did say "can" not "will"). Similarly for the rifle. I believe that one youtuber has tried a "trick shot" from the top of the bluffs near the control hut on Signal Hill and it would be possible to score a hit on the bear down below. There is no ballistics curve for the rifle or revolver bullet though there is one for the arrow. Get five rounds of rifle ammo and the ammo magically sprouts a stripper clip when one reloads the rifle. A bayonet would serve no purpose at the present time largely because the devs have not figured out how to accommodate the bear spear, in survival mode, which a bayonet would sort of transform the SMLE into a facsimile of. Also effective use of a bayonet on a rifle may require practice/training but the devs can gloss over that. Most everything else suggested would certainly seem reasonable but, like a lot of things in a game, the devs would have to decide it was worth their time and effort to implement. Until Story mode concludes, they would have to think in those terms.

I wonder what happened. Since exiting Carter Hydro at that point, which is a one-way door, would put the OP into the "outside world" and the actual result was he appeared in another "inside world" (the Winding River/Carter Hydro cave) which was some distance away, I would guess that, for some reason, the "outside world" was considered invalid by the game and the one-way aspect of the door he passed through meant the game could not just put him back where he had been (in Carter Hydro) so it put him (spawned him) in the next valid location he could have transitioned to (rather than at the entrance from Winding River into Carter Hydro which would be closer). Unfortunately in the process the game went back to a default condition of the start of the game rather than where he had been in it. The save game file would be on the individual PC and beyond the reach of Hinterland. I am no technician so I hope they can do something to recover the OP's gear, but I don't know.

It would certainly make it easier to have some visual reference as to whether an encountered cairn was found and clicked on before. I have taken to putting something near the cairn, often balanced precariously on top of the cairn, as a means to visually know whether I had clicked on it before. Since, as far as I know, the cairns found does not carry across different sandboxes and I have four that I rotate through, it makes it a bit of a problem. This would be more a quality of life kind of thing so likely would be very low priority.

I have not heard of anyone who has tried to do something like that. All I know is that low condition on the rifle (and even the revolver though that is kind of harder to believe) affects the risk of jamming and that condition has to be pretty low, like 30%? While low condition on ammunition means a "misfire" whatever that means (I understand but have not experienced it since I specifically do not craft ammunition at less than 80% because of this 'misfire' possibility). Personally I have not seen, with low condition bows, any obviously noticeable degradation in hunting performance. Obviously the RNG hated me when the deer fled after being shot and me at Level 5 Archery 🙂. I suspect the devs stayed away from such gray area effects as much as possible since the actual chance of bringing down an animal was RNG probability driven anyway.

The left-hand side of the start a fire screen lists three necessary items: fire starting device, tinder, fuel, and as an optional fourth item fire accelerant. The first three are necessary for to light a fire (at level 3 Fire Starting the tinder requirement becomes optional). The absence of any of the three necessary items means no fire. Fire starting device includes matches (cardboard and wood), fire striker, and magnifying lens. Most modes start the character with a box of wood matches but having a fire starting device is absolutely essential to survival. Tinder tends to be easily acquired - convert newsprint, stacks of papers, money, even sticks - but until level 3 fire starting they would be a must have. Sticks would tend to be the most plentiful fuel around - pick them up or break branches. Cedar is about as "easy" to ignite as sticks. Books would do for fuel as well and are easy to ignite. Reclaimed and fir wood can be lit but note that not all fuels are the same. Coal (not charcoal which cannot be burned) can be burned after the fire is lit with even a single stick. Because of that "difficulty" of getting the fire lit, especially at low skill levels, the usual advice is to pull a torch from the fire because a torch then can be lit with a match or fire striker and gives several tries when, as in inevitable, the attempt to light a fire fails, sometimes multiple times. Note that pulling a torch reduces fire duration (by about 10 minutes per torch) and temperature (-1 C per torch) so be aware of it. Eating raw meat or fish is a very hazardous act with a very high risk of food poisoning (and risk of intestinal parasites for predator meat). Even at Level 5 cooking skill, which confers a 'don't get food poisoning or intestinal parasites' benefit for cooked meat and fish that benefit won't protect anyone who decides to eat raw meat or fish. Good luck.

As I vaguely recall, the devs were considering the implementation of the Bear Spear into the survival mode game, but I suspect they found that its implementation as a general purpose tool/weapon was significantly more problematic than its use in a story-driven and limited story mode game. They probably have the working assumption that anything introduced into survival mode, which would then be "expected" to be available in story mode, had better work satisfactorily, as far as they were concerned, in the various activities that players would use and misuse it in. Once in survival mode there it will stay whether it proves to be workable, useful, or not. Things in story mode - like carrying survivors - do not have to be present in survival mode. As @Mroz4k pointed out the Bear Spear would be just one kind of spear meant for a specific purpose - defense against a charging dangerous beast - with limited applicability to other purposes like throwing. The devs would certainly know that adding one spear would bring about requests for other spears that were lighter, could be more easily thrown, etc. which would make the Bear Spear a kind of Pandora's box or can of worms. Whether they would want to open themselves to some implied "they did this so they must be willing to do that" position is unlikely or unknown. A ladder to use as a bridge across gaps would be essentially a "jump" by another name. Its use as a way to 'climb up' to a spot that is currently inaccessible would be a "climb" by another name. All at the player's discretion. I understand that the devs chose to not have a "jump" because they thought that it would cause them more problems that was worth it. I am sure we, as players, would disagree but then again the devs would be the ones who have to work out the mechanic and live with its ramification. I would have no problems with a spear. I would have no problems with some kind of "jump" and "climb" even in some limited sense. I feel that I am only pointing out something that I infer would be in the devs thought process about what to implement. They are the ones who will have to do the work and live with the results.

Old mans beard wound dressings weigh about the same as before but lack any bandage capability and that happened quite a while ago. The issue that arose was burn injuries could only be treated by using a bandage and wound dressings were deemed not applicable. Since wound dressings (at the time crafted with a bandage) were commonly the only "bandage" that most would carry in lieu of antiseptic and bandages as predator attacks were much more common than burns, this put players in a scramble for bandages when they burned themselves. Until it happened, there was nothing to indicate that old man's beard wound dressings could not be used as plain bandages (an oversight in the game that was "remedied" by making wound dressing not need a bandage and could not function as one).

The issue of interior illumination tends to swing back and forth. Where one stands on that depends on the player. To be honest, I would be okay with that amount of illumination though I can agree that it should be brighter depending on the time of day. Maybe next time have the game show the "time of day" (day/night cycle) which would appear in the upper right to show at what "time" of day this was taken. I would think that if that was taken in early morning, sun is above the horizon but not high in the sky, that would be about the right amount of lighting. In pre-aurora times if the room was not lighted enough to suit someone, they would switch on the overhead lights.

There is currently a mechanic for climbing a defined location by hand without a rope. Those locations are not very high (which means it is not difficult to skyrim down, level by level) and the act of climbing is a continuous act once started (whether going up or down) for each level. I would call this "free" climbing. Suggest that, from time to time, as time allows, the devs consider putting in more such locations, even climbs with many more steps that players could use to access specific (dev selected) spots for reasons such as "I did it", "Wow what a vista", "I always wondered what was up here", etc. There is no particular reason why it has to be present in a region when the region is introduced. Nor does it have to be particularly significant in any way. Maybe Mystery Lake or Desolation Point or Pleasant Valley might occasionally have some new spot become accessible on occasion or just as an alternative to climbing a rope. I am under no illusions about the difficulty or labor required to make something like this go in a particular location. I would expect that the [Free] Climb mechanic might need some modification and adjustments. Can it handle the player having to do much like with rope climbing, press forward to go up or reverse to go down? Can the climb be made substantially longer? How will that affect the character? Can a burdened character still climb up or down though perhaps at comparable speed to how he might move if he was walking? Can the character use a revolver while on the climb i.e. one-handed? I was in Ash Canyon and thought it would be nice to be able to get on top of some places which can't be mapped because there is no access or no place high enough and near enough to substitute for being there. Obviously some places might be inaccessible for a reason known only to the devs but other places?