UpUpAway95

Agree... but I do think that with clear descriptions in a custom menu, many new players will still be able to use it. RPG games have long had custom character creators and they've increasingly gotten more flexible (allowing for the adjustments of more features)... and even most new RPG players seem to be able to figure them out enough to get a character they'll play as... and if they don't want to take the time, they do fall back on using the default (or one of the defaults if multiple faces are presented). The custom menu is a step beyond that, I agree... but I wouldn't underestimate their abilities to figure it out... and perhaps they wouldn't tend to get drawn into the "easy, hard, very hard, hardest" difficulty mindset (that is pretty much a carryover from shooters and such... games that only have standard difficulties with no options for customization given to the player ever).

The short duration that many blood trails last has been a concern to players as long as I can remember. HL have made many adjustments to it. Sometimes the trail will reappear at a distance from where the previous trail disappears. Some times this "reallignment" occurs when the bleeding animal changes course or when the animal goes over a rock outcrop (that is, sometime the blood trail doesn't precisely follow the animal's path, but shifts over several feet and roughly "parallels" it. As well, it sometimes disappears for a bit when another animal of the same type crosses the path of the wounded one. I've spent a lot of time following wounded animals in game trying to make real sense of it... largely to no avail. A long while ago, it did capture a video of a bleeding bear actually climbing a tree... causing the blood trail to disappear at the base of the tree and then reappear a few feet away from the other side of it (that video was posted somewhere on this website back then). Animals resetting during storms is mostly confirm-able by using the kill counter in the journal (noting that it goes up by one at some point during the blizzard). If it doesn't, a reset has occurred. I also confirmed that my deer this time around had not reset because I ultimately found the carcass after the blizzard had passed.

HRV is one of the best regions in the game on so many levels (pun intended). The ice cave system is really great.

If posts were removed, they were done quickly because I didn't even see them at all. I assumed Raph was just reinforcing what HL was already doing to address the issue and their commitment to all players. I think all that's left is to just give HL some breathing room and see what they come up with going forward. I think gamers (including myself in this), in general, tend to over-anticipate things (i.e. over analyze the small teasers devs give out and build up their own theories to the point where what happens upon actual release becomes a disappointment because it doesn't match their built up expectations). It seems to me that games are having a harder and harder time releasing content to "positive reviews" despite the fact that most of these games are richer in content and more complex and more widely available on multiple platforms than ever before. TLD is a gift - let's go forward now and just enjoy it.

Question for Raph or Katie or anyone else at HL: After going through what feels like the Spiral Tunnels... Is the Far Territory Alberta? Sure feels like home to me. https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/bc/yoho/culture/kickinghorse/visit/~/media/16AB5C5C8BA14AD39803E451BAE95BDC.ashx?w=300&h=200&as=1

I'm so old, I don't understand "meme" language 90% of the time. I barely have a handle on emotes.😀

I agree... although I'm confident that he could also just be ignored easy enough. I'm not too concerned about it at all.

I agree... or at least they are going to find a way to make all the disparate groups of players feel more included rather than excluded.

I think they might be able to get around revamping the achievement/feat system... just enable feats in custom. Achievements have always been available in custom. The old challenges should probably stay just the way they are (even though some of them exclude Pilgrim); and use their own difficulty settings. Tales is already undergoing modifications, but perhaps the whole issue may have been avoided add the signal void Tale been set up a little bit separate from regular survival and with it's own difficulty level just as the old challenges were done. If the templates stay as they are in custom, then the 4 standard difficulties are still there... just presented to the player as custom templates rather than their own stand-alone difficulties. I think that alone would go a long way towards allowing players to become more flexible about how they choose to play and how they view different types of new content that might be added to the game in future... without preventing HL from being imaginative about various forms of content. Some custom sliders should be changed regardless. The BRA should be fixed to apply only to quality if loot (that is, changing BRA should have no effect on the amount of loot to be found). That increasing BRA does current increase the amount of loot found is the single most cited reason I hear from Lopers as to why they don't want to do that. Also, there are currently 3 sliders that do control amount of loot; and those could stay as is or, perhaps, be combined in one "amount of loot" slider. I'd certainly accept whatever HL decides though... they know how their game is programmed.😀

Several detailed guides have been popping up on Youtube over the past few days. I'm not going to specify any, but a search in Youtube's search engine for "The Long Dark, all "X" (e.g. transponder, bunker, transmitter) locations should yield some results for you.

I haven't been locked out of any spaces yet, but I am noticing that sticks are disappearing even as I'm going to pick them up. I have also notice that containers that I know I've searched and were empty sometimes contain items on a subsequent visit to that location (I'm not sure if it is isolated to indoor locations or not). An old bug of which this might be a variant, was that wounded/bleeding animals would despawn (or reset) if the player went indoors to, say, get out of a blizzard. I tested this in one of my runs recently by wounding a deer, following it for a little bit to confirm a blood trail, and then breaking off to go inside and sleep and a blizzard did start just before I went indoors. The deer was still alive when I went inside, but was dead fairly close by when I emerged more than 12 hours later (so that bug didn't trigger at least on that occasion.) Of course, more tests are needed.

Where I'm mostly noticing them has been in Desolation Point and, more recently, in Milton. They are far more frequent and louder than they were before this update (which on Xbox is the first update after the change in game structure, so maybe I'm noticing stuff that PC players have just learned to live with from their previous update - don't know).

Yes, I've seen this happen on several test starts in Broken Railroad. The caches themselves spawn, but the keys and notes don't about 30% of the time for me so far (tests have been run in various custom difficulties). Have also suspected that it has happened in other regions where I've done test starts (problem is I'm not as familiar with where all the keys to which caches spawn yet)

That would be a disappointing bug alright since the trailer clearly says we can pick it up and drop it at our leisure. Hopefully, they'll fix it soon. I've also interacted with Signal Void content and I didn't really plan on starting the Tale for quite some time. I'm probably just going to continue this run as planned and start a new one after all the patches are done. If I die, then I'll consider starting a run with the intention of going directly to the Far Territory and starting the Tale as soon as possible.

Silliest - Probably missing grabbing a rope at the top (about the middle of one my one-region runs, say, Day 25. Worst - Walking off the trestle bridge in a blizzard (I had so much good loot in that run) - Day 3. I detest bear maulings at any time... scare the bejeezus out of me.

You don't attract new players and new gamers if the game is SOLELY catered around the hardest difficulties. Players who play at the hardest difficulties have to consider that less skilled players also play the game, and those players have a learning curse to get through. Also, the ongoing sources of funds for the devs largely comes not from players who have played the game forever, but new players who buy the game. Also, it is most likely that a large percentage of player who have played a single game for a long time will eventually burn out on it and move onto something different. Pilgrim isn't a fringe mode either. All too often, Lopers take the stand that they'll only play on Loper so alternatives like Custom don't exist for them. The Tale was always available to all players who bought the DLC, just not necessarily in their preferred game mode... which has alway been the case with every other Challenge in the game. Pilgrim players can't play The Hunted with a passive bear... and those challenges are every bit as much "game content" as the DLC Tale. At this point, getting rid of the standard game modes really is the only way this becomes "fair" to all players at all levels of skill without hamstringing HL's imagination (i.e. causing them to not add particular types of content in the future just because it isn't ideally suited to all their standard difficulty levels). No difficulty "earns" more consideration from a dev than another. They all paid their money to play the game.

I've gotten used to most of the banging when the wind blows. What I have noticed more recently are loud bangs when the wind is not blowing at all... wonder if this is a sign to another earlhquake coming? I'm OK with asking that it be toned down, but I would also consider that it might have a story purpose.

Congrats. That one does take awhile. I remember that I wanted to deliberately end my character at the 500 day mark (I never take a character past 500 days, just not my thing) and time was running short. I had plenty of cloth so resorted to mending my bedroll after every use and mended my clothing at 99% just to get it by the 500th day.

Disagree that Lopers should be able to get gunsmithing skills to Level 5 from just reading books that wash up on the beach. Would prefer they go in the opposite direction... that skills books don't spawn in runs where the appropriate skills cannot be acquired through actual practice (e.g. shooting and gunsmithing skill books don't spawn in any run where rifles and revolvers are both disabled and small arms skill books don't spawn in any run where revolvers are disabled; and anglers books don't spawn in any run where fish spawns are disabled, etc.

I hope though that Interlopers can also see the risk in perfectly tailoring a game only to the wishes of players who play on, let's say, very hard difficulty (the hardest difficulty is a particular sort of custom run, not a vanilla interloper one). Terms like "sucker punched" and "'being ignored" and other things that were said by Loper players during their lobby to pressure the devs into adding this tale to Loper were unnecessary and completely disrespectful of the devs who have already in the past responded several times to complaints that were principally made by Loper players.

That's rather unfair... I can think of several things that have been changed when complaints were made. Rifles and revolvers were made toggle-able in Custom after some players complained that they couldn't use a rifle without getting "stalker" loot. The birch tea toggle was added when Lopers complained that it was too OP. Originally, after that change was made, ammo wouldn't spawn on Interloper, so it was fixed. The behavior of T-Wolves has been changed a few times in response to player complaints about it. Sprain healing mechanics were changed from the way they were when they were first introduced. Even the mechanics have been adjusted a few times since I first started playing. HL have changed things... usually, but not always, by adding toggles in Custom... still, they are changes. As devs go, HL is a cut above most in responding to player concerns.

... and last but not least - because Candian optimism is also a thing: Great Big Sea "Ordinary Day"

That is basically what I'm saying. If, however, you present things as they are with 4 difficulties on the main page and then toggles within each of the 4 difficulties for each Tales piece of content... and then potential future content, you're effectively creating a lot menu duplication (4x) that would be unnecessary if the page presenting the "standard" difficulty options was removed and the game simply started up in the custom menu. The only reason I can see for that first "start-up" page existing is to cancel feat progression if the "custom" option is selected to open the custom menu. The templates for interloper, stalker, voyageur, and pilgrim already exist within the custom menu.

I still thing the best thing is to eliminate the standard difficulties and move the custom menu to the main start page... leaving the name templates there as templates (i.e. allowing the player to see right off the start what template include what features and at what levels each are set at before choosing one. To go with this, enable feat progression in custom (necessary since all games (whether they use the templates unchanged or alter them) would be, in effect, custom games. Which features they individually access and at what position on each slider they do that would be completely in the hands of the player. In addition, adjust the baseline resources allocation (bra) to control only the quality of loot, not the amount and add toggles for more items individually (like the guns can be currently enabled or disabled, but expanded to more items). That way, if an interloper player wants an expedition parka without finding a ton more food and other tools, they could do so. If a pilgrim player then wants an aggressive cougar in their game and all other animals still passive, they could do so. I think this would avoid future feelings of being "left out" of content. I would hate to see HL prevented from conceiving of and adding different sorts of future content to the game just because it isn't ideally suited to every current "standard" difficulty. For example, the other way this could have gone down is if, say, HL had decided to not create the Tale at all (i.e. killed it in the boardroom) because they felt that it wasn't suitable for Interloper... which would have been a sadder outcome for all of us because it is a great piece of content.

Looks like a "quick resume" Hotfix is already done. Hopefully, Xbox will release it to all of us soon. Dev diary didn't say anything about my issue with launching save files when "quick resume" was active, but hopefully that's also covered with this fix.