UpUpAway95

7 hours ago, odizzido said:

The windows in PV stop bullets. Even the parts of the broken windows with no glass at all stop the bullets. Just with air. Well, really it's a transparent block that has broken window looking stuff on it that blocks the bullets but in the actual game bullets cannot penetrate 1cm of air sometimes. /shrug.

I've even had cattails that have stopped bullets.  I haven't tested the windows in the watchtowers, but I would suspect that they are bulletproof.  If so, there would have to be some way for the damage to the building to become permanent and that doesn't exit in the game.  Bullet marks on buildings do disappear in a short time.

1 hour ago, hozz1235 said:

You don't need to be an addict to gamble.  Just pointing out what some will do for the smallest chance of gaining something.

I realize that - you keep asking what I'm saying when I say "sensible people" and that's based on my opinion.  People themselves judge whether they feel they are behaving sensibly... and observers also judge whether they think the people around them are behaving sensibly.  With gambling, an addiction is indicated when the gambling starts to harm the individual doing the gambling and those around him.  The relevant question being "Is it a problem?"

1 hour ago, hozz1235 said:

Seems like it would be a long goat down if there was.  Not sure if this helps:

Yeah, I'm thinking the Wiki map is somewhat misleading by showing a "one-way path" coming off the dead-end area of the overlook.  Looking over the edge, it looks like a very near vertical slope with no real ledges even evident.  I'm not feeling it, but the map even seems to show a possible deer carcass on the way down.

ETA:  I should also add that the less detailed map of the two on the Wiki doesn't show this path.

Looking recently at the map of Ash Canyon in the Wiki (which was recently posted by someone in another thread here discussing the route from Shattered Cove to Pillar's Footrest, I noticed a path shown that seems to go down the mountain from Wolf's Jaw Overlook.  Out of curiosity, I decided to go there and am currently camped at the overlook.  For the life of me, I cannot see any slope that I'd be willing to blindly toss my character over.  Does this path actually exist?  If so, is there a video of someone using it that I can look at in order to bolster my nerve.  Thanks.

Possibly... was this terrain changed at all in the last update which mentions the polaroid location now being accessible?

35 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

I don't think anyone is arguing over your opinion - everyone is entitled to that.  My only point is your constant use of "sensible person".  What you consider "sensible" may be completely different for someone else.  I also would not spend hours upgrading a pair of socks from cotton to wool, but perhaps someone really wants a parka in the early game and don't want to make the hike to TWM summit?  I can see someone spending some time save-scumming.  Perfect case of this:  Gambling.  Millions of people partake in it with a very low chance of gain, but that carrot dangling out there is hard for some to resist!

I don't consider people with gambling addictions to be "sensible" about it.  As I also implied... if people feel that they are being "sensible" in a single-player game by save scumming, my personal inclination is to just let them do it... but that's me, not HL.  My opinion is that HL could come up with a more effective way to stop save scumming (if that's what they want to do) by simply making the game save when it is exited to reload.  Currently, I see the greater incentive to roll back before the game can save would be to avoid an imminent attack... as in see a bear charging, quickly exit, and you'll reload wherever it was you last slept or entered a building and possibly not lose the character to a death.  As it is, HL's deterrent doesn't prevent that sort of save scumming.

Based on the loot from the corpse inside the cave, looks like you had a shot at getting the hacksaw at the plane.  Was it there or did you collapse the run after ending the video?

I'm anxious to give your route a try.  The extra sprains sort of scare me... still might be inclined to take the rope and hope for cloth somewhere in order to make a snow shelter.

It doesn't bother me either way, but then again, I still cook it an pot and, as a result, have to open my inventory anyways.  One drawback, perhaps, would be having to pick up and then place sticks individually would take more time than picking up a bunch by rapidly clicking on the bunch on the floor and then dropping them onto the fire by rapidly clicking in the inventory.  What I really wish is they'd allow us to somehow "bundle" sticks into 5- or 10-stick packets that can be picked up and, in this case, placed all at once.  That would save a lot of carpel tunnel.

9 hours ago, hozz1235 said:

If you look at the mailbag @ajb1978 posted, you can see that is the case:

Loot gets rolled when you enter. We save it so you can't just exit, reload, and reroll to try to get a better set of loot. The game state persists in memory when you leave so we don't need to save it at that point. We could save again but I'm not sure what the benefit would be.

Trying to define "most sensible people" can be a tough nut to crack but HL must have thought it was a relevant enough issue to address directly.

I'm not arguing whether or not HL thought it was necessary... I'm saying that my opinion is that it is a moot deterrent because the good loot is placed in predictable locations and most sensible people go for the sure bet rather than spend hours spamming a door for a random roll of the dice. A good portion of the loot occurs outdoors and is also not gated behind the entrance to a building,   If you think it's worthwhile to try spamming the re-entry to a building for hours to get the difference between cotton socks or wool socks, etc.... then I would just let you do it.  You bog down your game and largely ruin the experience... but that's your business.  Still, it's my opinion.  HL can do whatever they like.

It wouldn't matter to me whether they eliminated this deterrent entirely.  There is, IMO, no incentive in this game to spam a door for hours on end to get marginally better random loot at a house.  Better to just move on to the next house.   I think I'm a pretty average player and pretty sensible.  IMO,  a more effective deterrent against all forms of save scumming is to have the game automatically exit save (overwriting the previous save) in the manner that Minecraft Bedrock Edition does on the Xbox One.  The moment you leave your game, any progress is automatically saves... whether you want it to be or not.

At any rate... this has nothing to do with the windows; and apparently my posited theory about whether or not eliminating this door save would enable clear windows would not solve the tardis issue with the building exteriors being smaller than they should be.  I suggest if people want to continue to argue with me over what are clearly stated as my personal opinions about save scumming and deterent to it, they PM me instead.  It is irrelevant to this thread.

I'm still very fond of the hunting lodge in Broken Railroad, but as the map has gotten larger (addition of Ash Canyon), something more central makes sense... so likely it would be the Camp Office in Mystery Lake.  In reality, I don't tend to set up a global base.  In fact, as the map has gotten larger and my tendency has become to start new runs quicker (due to boredom), I'm tending to stay mostly in the single zone where I spawn, unless I'm playing where Baseline Resources are set to Low where I pretty much have to go through multiple zones in order to forge.

3 hours ago, Stinky socks said:

Hahaha, yes, you are damaged goods once you know too much. No enjoyment afterwards. Time to move on or fade into the long dark for some time before coming back for another run.

Well, it all depends on how you set yourself up when you begin a new run. Of course, if you made a mental list of what you will do and where you will go once you start, all enjoyment goes out the window because you are in "doing chores" mode. 

Forget it all! Fight a wolf, go try fishing, get lost in a snowstorm! Live life to the fullest! Want to know what I did? Iran through a blizzard totally blind to reach broken highway from fishery! It was fun and I almost died! Slept in a car because I overshot the landing! 

What I was saying is that most sensible people wouldn't bother with save scumming in order to get a particular item from what's available on the randomized loot tables since the good loot in this game is all available in largely known, essentially guaranteed locations.  Really, are you going to save scum to get peaches rather than tomato soup?... when you know the combat pants you really want are up the hill in the signal tower?  Not playing loper - Are you going to scum repeatedly to get a ski jacket when you know you can get an almost guaranteed expedition parka at the summit of TWM?  If you're going to scum to get "what you want," then you already have to know something about what the game has available... and once you know what the good loot is in this game... chances are you also have acquired some sense about where to reliably find it.  At this point, I think it's a moot deterent.

Anyway... back to windows.  I think the tardis explanation is probably closer to the actual reason.

11 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

I believe the original intent behind saving when transitioning was to prevent people from reloading an interior over and over, which was done to get the item you wanted from the randomized loot table.

Makes some sense, I guess... but TBH, it's kind of moot when there are now guaranteed locations for most "choice" items and players are basically now just replaying those routes over and over again with each new run... bee line for the matches, head to a known location for a bedroll and combat pants, then off to Ash Canyon for the crampons and a possible bear skin coat... etc.

3 hours ago, odizzido said:

On PC you have one button that is both an action button for things like shooting, throwing rocks, confirming an action.....as well as interacting with objects for cooking, picking things up, opening doors, etc.

 

You can change that key, but the problem is I don't want to have throw rock/shoot be the same button as open door/cook/etc

I can't think of another game that has shoot and interact using the same key. And the fact that I have thrown rocks while trying to pick up a rabbit says why other games don't do this. I really hope this changes by the time story mode is done because it's going to negatively impact my play experience if not. By quite a bit. I have low tolerance for bad controls.

On the Xbox, the controls for aiming and firing are on the LT and RT, respectively... which is pretty much normal for most games I've played.  The "Interact" button is the "A," which includes opening and picking up.  I wonder why they set it up as the same key on the PC?  It seems odd to me.  Thanks for explaining.

I do think they should set up a couple of alternative schemes at least.  Some people play with varying motor disabilities and having some options might make the difference between them being able to play or not.

26 minutes ago, UTC-10 said:

The proposition for a "disaster" event was predicated on it occurring where the player was and not at some random location. 

Part of the discussion would be what path would be preferable to those who might want a significant event to occur that could materially affect their survival process.  Random disasters wherever and whenever they happen or one focused on where the player is when it occurs or something in-between?

 

Still, disasters would not potentially occur at every location the player could be, unless HL undertakes to program potential disasters for each and every location the player could potentially set up a base (for the fire event described).  That means that, if HL just sets up the potential event at a couple of locations in the game world, players would soon learn where they potential locations were and simply avoid using them as a base.  A fire that happens at, say, the Camp Office, at some point the player is there but after looting it of everything is meaningless (i.e. it does not "damage" the player's collection of things).  There is also the question of programming when (i.e. on what visit to the site) the event occurs.  2nd? 3rd? 4th? 50th?  If you want it to impact the player, it would have to occur only after multiple visits since ti takes several visits to transport stuff to a truly "base" location in this game.  At any rate, there is likely to be a pattern that, eventually, players would become cognizant... and simply avoid triggering.

12 hours ago, Cranky said:

If this is about the fishing camp in CH, Stinky and I seen the same, the bear passes thru at around dawn and dusk.

Personally, if I’m doing long crating sessions I do it at the gas station so not to deal with predators, but Stinky’s idea does work if u got no meat on ya. 

... or just kill the bear and do take something from him, but not everything... so you have some time before he'll respawn. 😃... works for the wolf too.

24 minutes ago, Dancewithknives said:

 

 

Yes, I understood that... I was clarify my numbers to @stratvox, who seemed to be thinking that I was referencing respawns of saplings, when I was not... but rather referring only to initial spawns in individual zones with loot and plant settings pushed to their maximum levels (i.e. reflecting what should be, on average, the maximum numbers available on a per zone basis).  I've not done a "whole world" compilation because that would take multiple  hugely long run at those settings to get "scientific" averages... and I'd get quite bored with that.

16 minutes ago, Lord of the Long Dark said:

you can already do all that. 

I can sort in my inventory.  AFAIK, I can't sort in the cooking lists (i.e. the list that comes up after you select "Cook" and then your "Cooking Pot" (on Xbox One).  The interface is different on PC.  On Xbox One, the list shows the best condition raw meat first with the weight just apparently random throughout as long as the meat is at the same condition.  Of course, there could be "unseen decimals" in the condition that control this.

6 minutes ago, Bimbobjoejr. said:

Those are stereotypical nighttime bird noises and that does add to the night's ambience. those are the only others that i've heard, loons and owls, not songbirds. And you talk about how torches and stones repel wolves effectively, but how would that add to other animals if implemented? Just because something works on one animal doesn't mean it'll work on everything. And it doesn't always come with a price of ambience, but sometimes will give it out.

They do not just chirp at night.  They chirp on any remotely clear day.  Look, I've already said - give me the custom option to turn any type of animal spawn off and I have no objection.  I'll just turn them off.  I'd also like an option to turn of the birds.  Turning off the crows would make finding corpses more difficult.  I'd like to try a run where the only bird ambience are loons.

20 minutes ago, Bimbobjoejr. said:

that's because they're crows, they don't really care. But having any weapon in the game makes it easier but having more predators would mean you use up your ammo faster, and as far as I can tell, it would take a bit to make your arrows again. Even if those predators get distracted by other prey animals, there could just as easily be another around the bend. But still, the game could have a fresh helping of new animals to at least keep the player busy, otherwise the game becomes... oh what dd he say?

that's it! Survival mode needs more for the player to do, because as it stands, all you can do is hunt and walk, so more animals would bring the spice of life.

I'm not talking about the crows.  There are many bird sounds in the game... many more now than when I first started playing.  There are song birds in the game that do chirp like its spring.  Listen and you'll hear them.  You don't necessarily use ammo faster to avoid and even repel predators.  Wolves are very easily repelled using torches and stones... so much so that Lopers I've seen on Twitch have called it an exploit.

You can add "lots" to this game... but it comes with a price... the loss of ambience.  I would also argue that adding more animals to slaughter is not add "more for the player to do" that's different in any way... it's just adding more of the same with different colored pixels.

Something I would probably never use, but if others want it I have no objections.

20 hours ago, Lord of the Long Dark said:

Here are things that REALLY do need to be implemented to improve gameplay via better interface mechanism.  Just a matter of making tasks more efficient to complete without changing anything as far as game time or survival challenge- strictly interfacing. 
 1. Make more actions if not all actions able to be “stacked”.  For example you can prepare multiple tea ingredients or arrows at once but you can only sharpen once at a time or prepare one tinder at a time.  All actions should be stackable.
2. Make the inventory wheel fully customizable so any item can be added at any location on the wheel. Same for action buttons on game pad- make them customizable. 
3. When carrying multiple bows, the action button to draw a bow should default to the LOWEST condition bow, not the highest. Similar to how it works for arrows and sewing kits for example. if there is just one improvement to make I’d prefer this one the most. 
4. Be able to eat multiple cattails at once (accounting for additional time of course).

  just some things to improve the interface without changing the gameplay survival mechanics 

 

I'd also like the cooking list to put the lowest condition raw meat in the inventory at the top (or left if cooking without a pot although it's more common to use the "place" method when cooking without a pot).  I would also like it asort the pieces by weight in this list so that pieces of meat that are the same size and the same condition  are more easily found together to cook at the same time.  If I wind up cooking a "fraction" piece from a bear harvest, I'd like to be able to more quickly find a matching fraction piece without having to scroll through a bunch of full-sized pieces in order to keep my cooking times for both "burners" on the fire equal.

20 hours ago, odizzido said:

I want better controls. Not having open door, throw rock, pick up, etc all being the same button. Or, they can be if people want, or not if people don't want. Like in Quake1 from 1996 or everquest from 1999. Have as many actions bound to one key as you wish, or a single action for each, or anything in between. That's what I want. The 25 year old freedom of controls that we enjoyed so much.

I'm always confused about this.  Is there absolutely no way on the PC to remap the controls?  That seems really at odds with the vast majority of games out there.  I know there isn't on the Xbox One (which also seems rather more limited than even most newer games I've played).

So, yes... there should at least be a couple of alternative control schemes offered.

23 hours ago, Bimbobjoejr. said:

I... I fail to see where you're going with this. Adding more animals wouldn't make it like that veen if you meant it as a joke. Of course everything in the game becomes easier when you get a rifle, but what about when you don't have that luxury? That's more animals to worry about avoiding and adds to that idea of survival at all costs. 

 

This I agree with. Currently, the only animals in the game are: Wolves, Black Bears, Moose, Deer, Rabbits, Timberwolves, And the fish. And how often do you see these animals, even with a high spawn rate? Adding more animals, even if localized, would make the game a lot more different and give the player more to do.

When I don't have a rifle, I have a bow... so, more animals, are more animals to hunt and kill, regardless of difficulty.  More predators, would make avoiding predators more difficult on any difficulty except when Animals are set to Passive (Pilgrim mode), but it would not necessarily make the game more difficult is more non-hostile animals would also cause those predators to be more frequently distracted as they hunt and feed on the non-hostile ones.  Regardless, it destroys the ambience of it being a cold, harsh, and lonely environment.  I already feel that hearing birds chirping like its springtime is a little disconnected to a -30 temperature.

10 hours ago, stratvox said:

Saplings do not respawn. Once you've used up all of the saplings in the world, the only way to get more is when they wash up on shore in Desolation Point, Crumbling Highway, Coastal Highway, or Bleak Inlet: by beachcombing.

This is not a particularly common occurrence, having saplings wash up on shore.

True, but overall, there are far more than 11 shots with a bow worth of them available in every zone... and the total amount has been added to with each new zone.  In Ash Canyon, for example, my test run with the maximum available loot settings and resources setting, I collected 20 birch saplings but only 17 rifle bullets.  I got about 95% of the zone's loot site explored before I collapsed the run.  BTW, note to Atheenon (since I've heard him say on multiple stream), groups of saplings being already chopped down is not an "interloper" thing.  At Miner's Folly, that group of saplings was already chopped down in my test run.  Broken Railroad, on average, will yield 7 birch saplings and 4 or 5 maple when the plant availability (not respawns) settings are set to the maximum.  At the shafts per sapling, that's a minimum of 21 shots.... but, of course, each arrow is retrievable multiple times.

Conversely, ammo spawns for the rifle have been reduced and, as I said... with the available loot settings set to their maximum, I still don't tend to get more than 17 bullets for the rifle in any given zone.  Broke Railroad averages about 11 rifle bullets.   That's a vast difference in the amount of ammo available for the bow vs. the rifle... so why pick on the rifle again if a reduction in available ammo is desired to incorporate bear spray?

14 hours ago, Dancewithknives said:

In my latest game I’ve found at least 1, some times 2, rifles in each map that i’ve visited. I think that’s a little excessive. 
 

I can’t really comment on the bullets ive found (It would essentially just be 1 upping nonsense). But using what you said, that would be 36 rounds that, if all shots hit, guns don’t break, and time given for the bleedout, results in 36 dead animals. Granted, that has as much to do with the way that bleedout works, but how much or little that would be is up to you. 

I think it may be considerate to think of other people’s playstyles. I know I don’t play the game efficiently, but i know that when I do supply runs to make my basecamp the beef jerky and cattail pimpin palace, there are times when i go on my supply runs where wish I could leave the guns and ammo behind and save the 4 legged meals on wheels for later. 

 

"I think it may be considerate to think of other people's playstyles."  Yes... consider that if a player chooses to make a run in 1 zone only and without a revolver... 11 shots with a rifle limits that run severely in length.  What I said is that it has already been reduced significantly (that is, personally, I'm finding far fewer rounds of ammo for the rifle when I first started playing; and I'm finding far fewer rifles overall).  Raph acknowledge one reduction to rifle spawns when they introduced the revolver.  There was another when they introduced Bleak Inlet (which assumes that everyone using a rifle will collect their brass and take it all to Bleak Inlet to reload).  I would not like (personally, i.e. my opinion) that it be reduced further to introduce bear spray... which everyone has been surviving without quite well since this game was released. 

ETA:  IMO, bear spray is pixel fluff... it does not serve a purpose not served by other items not already in the game) - i.e. torches and stones.  It's like spray paint, which serves the same purpose as marking stuff with tinder or sticks or stones or whatnot.  HL can add it if they want.  I probably just won't bother collecting it when I find it; and yes, that's my playstyle.  If, however, they use it as another excuse to further reduce ammo for the rifle, I won't like it at all.  It does not serve the same purpose as the rifle BECAUSE it is incapable of killing the animal.

ETA:  Why don't you suggest they cut the number of birch and maple saplings in the world instead... because the rifle and the bow do serve the same purpose... killing larger game... and lopers should need fewer than a zillion, mostly retrievable arrows if bear spray is added.

9 hours ago, UTC-10 said:

Not that I want the devs to actually implement such an event, I would expect that there would be other parameters associated with the possibility of "disaster" to soften or harden the disaster.  Why I made this a discussion rather than a suggestion. 

As part of a customized game, the player would choose to subject his character to the problem.   The possibility of a disaster could even form the basis for a new challenge or maybe even a new event. 

It's worth a discussion, but I honestly don't see it happening for the same reasons I don't see them giving us the ability to build our own houses or to chop down trees.  I also recall having a similar discussion over a year ago and people were largely against adding scripted events into the sandbox game; preferring to keep them as separate challenges.  If implemented, it think it would wind up being a very expensive feature (i.e. cost in time to HL) that the majority of people would do as you say you would... and turn it off.

That said, I understand where you're coming from.  The mid-term "boredom" factor is certainly an issue with runs and adding new zones has generally resulted in "average" runs getting longer overall (at least in my experience and from what I'm seeing on Youtube and Twitch).  Personally, I feel there are simpler ways... e.g. allow the player to increase the difficulty of their runs as they proceed through the world (i.e. move the custom sliders ever further towards increasing difficulty, but still not allow them to reduce them along the way).  Combine this with adding more "top end" to the sliders themselves.. making their most difficult settings even more difficult.  In my mind, all of that would be far easier for HL to implement than adding in points for natural disasters to occur... that is, making enough points in time when disasters could occur and enough places where they could occur to make them meaningful.  A one-off fire at the Camp Office in ML has no meaning for a player who has already looted that zone and doesn't make a "base" there or ever intends to return.  It would take savvy players really just one run to figure out to not make a base at any location subject to that disaster.  Once they know where and when they would trigger, they'd just avoid them.