UpUpAway95

1 hour ago, oplli said:

Yes but Broken railroad have a bunch of wolves and a bears to prevent you from exploring hunters cabin too fast.

That doesn't change the size of the zone and the amount of locations in it worth exploring.  Sure there are not as many wolves, but I have been ganked in Desolation Point numerous times when coming out of the Processing Plant and over by Katie's Secluded Corner and the path to the lighthouse.  Getting around the bear patrolling around the Rykin and the Processing Plant can also get interesting if you don't have a weapon of any kind yet.  In addition, there is only one bear in Broken Railroad... same number as in DP.  You also have to consider the wolves in Crumbling Highway, which are every bit as tenacious as those in Broken Railroad.

I still think the solution is to combine it with Crumbling Highway and add another route that continues along the coast rather than having to go through the mine.

1 hour ago, Schrodingers Box said:

Doesn’t change the math though. Either you understand it or you don’t. On easy levels like stalker and below, sure- just ignore quartering just like you ignore cattails. Who picks up cattails in easy levels?? But on interloper you have to know how to maximize resources.  quartering does that. It is about resource management as well as time management.  Those aren’t important when you are sitting there with a can of condensed milk and two expedition parkas harvesting without needing a fire lol. 

You're ignoring a large part of the math though... It takes additional time to move your bags (and unlikely that you can safely carry all of them at once) and then harvest those bags before you get the benefit of the resources from the total animal anyways.  For a deer or wolf, you can completely harvest it onsite in less time than it would take you to quarter and then harvest the bags of meat.  If your bear drops dead after returning to his cave, you can easily harvest the whole thing beside at raging fire and have a large portion of the meat already cooked in less time than you can quarter, transport, harvest and then cook it... on ANY difficulty level, including Loper... and then you can carry more of your bear out of there in one trip because the harvested meat weighs 50% less in total.

Let's talk about tool management... as I said, you can harvest with a hacksaw, but you can't quarter with one.  A hacksaw is a completely repairable tool, your hatchet has to be sharpened with a whetstone (or repaired in Bleak Inlet - where Atheenon says there is no point for Lopers to risk traveling there).

As noted, if you don't intend to eat the meat, you can always harvest the hide in less than two hours.  Yes, you won't get all 10 guts, but you can't repair your bearskin coat with fishing tackle anyways and fishing is noted to be rather useless in Loper as well... so how many guts do you need?... or are you just wasting valuable time and calories collecting them?

Also, I would counter with who doesn't pick cattails on any level?  From what I've seen on Youtube, everyone does regardless of whether or not they are playing on Interloper.  Your continued attempts to demean people who don't play on standard interloper are, quite honestly, ridiculous.  Also, your bearskin coat has a higher warmth rating and waterproof rating than the expedition parka.

15 minutes ago, darkscaryforest said:

When someone brings up a good point, responding with "you don't play interloper" isn't a productive contribution to the discussion. It just makes you look ignorant. I'll point you to your own quote when you were being rude to another player on this forum:

If you're not interested in the guts or skin, quartering not only adds 2 hours to the entire harvesting process- it doubles the weight of the goods to bring back to base camp so you have to add that time of going back and forth with scent. If a blizzard hits when you're carving onsite, it might not be a big deal to just come back.

Better yet is the consideration of predators nearby. One of the most powerful things in the long dark is your ability to just leave anything anywhere and have the guarantee that it'll be there when you come back.  If there's a trio of wolves between you and where you want the meat, it's a legit tactic to harvest and drop it onsite- giving you time to think about how to transport it safely (through more violence or other means).

Like almost every other mechanic in the game, there's nuance in deciding whether to quarter or not since there's so many variables at play. That's what makes The Long Dark such a great game

Well said.

1 hour ago, ajb1978 said:

Use the opportunity to safely transport meat. Get back to my cave and cook up what I have, come back for the rest later. Also depending on how hot you managed to get that fire you might be able to just take your clothes off (prevent blizzard damage) then carve off 1kg of meat or 1 gut at a time. If your fire is windblown it gets capped at 9 minutes, but only takes 6 to carve out a 1kg steak at level 5. Cut one steak off, toss a stick in, cut another steak off, toss another stick in.

Exactly what I've been trying to tell @Schrodingers Box on the other thread currently running on this same topic.

38 minutes ago, Schrodingers Box said:

Ridiculous. You clearly don’t play interloper. There is no way to spend 5 to 8 hours in interloper in one spot and maintain a fire.  The weather changes way too quick. Plus it’s just plain...simple...math. In less time that getting a hide and two guts you get the hide, 10 guts and the meat. math. Simple. 

Ridiculous. 1) Bears don't always die out in the open, so it is entirely possible sometimes to maintain a 5 to 8-hour fire near a bear in interloper.  2) It is not always possible to maintain a 2-hour fire or to stay 2 hours out in the open without a substantial loss of condition... which is the exact time it will take you to quarter any animal.  You can, however, opt to harvest in small increments of time; and therefore, you are better able to monitor changing weather conditions as you go... adding sticks to your fire and/or moving your fire as the wind changes.  You can even cook some of your steaks as you harvest them... or even make a tea if you harvest only one steak at a time. 

Finally, quartering isn't possible if all you have on you is a hacksaw (if, say, you manage to scare a wolf off a deer it has killed before you make your forge run).  So, you may find yourself in a position of having to just harvest a deer... so don't say that it's impossible to harvest in interloper.  That's nonsense.

As a Custom only player, I'm not interested in seeing any more of these grind to 1,000 types of feats added unless they enable them to be progressed in custom mode.  TBH, I don't really see the point of them at all.  The Darkwalker feat (i.e. feats earned within challenge modes) is much more appealing than the grindy ones from the main game.  Do you even ever use the similar one we already have... Expert Trapper?  I don't.

DP is about the same size as Broken Railroad, so it holds that both forges at the map edges are in small zones.  I don't know why you'd propose expanding one and not the other.  The DP situation can be easily resolved by combining it with Crumbling Highway... basically eliminating that so-called "transition zone" in the minds of the player and replacing your suggested "All of that in the middle of the mountains that is only accessible via a cave system that starts at the waterfall or something like that!" since the current connection between Crumbling Highway and Desolation Point is through a mine.  They could satisfy your description completing just by adding a waterfall inside that mine (which I hate, BTW... particularly the one in Ash Canyon).   For an alternate access, they could add a surface route along the coast between Crumbling Highway and Desolation Point.  I wouldn't mind seeing a fishing hut somewhere either in Desolation Point or Crumbling Highway.  I suggested one myself many moons ago... and IIRC, the community shot down the idea.

1 hour ago, Glflegolas said:

Quartering wolves & bears if you plan on eating them isn't that smart, because then you end up with more fractional pieces of meat than if you harvest. This isn't a problem in voyageur, but I don't like eating less than 1 kg of predator meat in Stalker/Interloper at once, as the risk of parasites is the same for 1 kg as for 0.01 kg.

Quartering them if you don't plan on eating any part of them isn't smart because you can harvest the hide and at least some guts in less than 2 hours.

It's situational for me.  There is always the option to harvest a small amount of meat and or the hide from the animal and keep coming back at intervals (after warming up or the weather improves) to continue harvesting.  Nothing says everything has to be taken in one go.  Quartering takes 2 hours with no option to have it take less time than that... so, if I think the weather will be decent for two hours, I'll quarter and carry a bag back to shelter to harvest.  If it's really deteriorating (i.e. the weather), I'll take the hide and a steak or two and come back in a few hours to finish the job... or to do another part of it.  It's rare that I don't manage to harvest everything I want from the animal eventually before it despawns.  Also, I never bother quartering deer.  The time difference is just not that significant unless I'm ripping it apart with my hands... which means I don't have the option to quarter it anyways.

2 hours ago, Old Hermit said:

It would be very nice. But still has the chance of that gear being burned or fallen on the chasm or lost somehow in the plane crash.

About the aeronautical chart, it was my very first thought when i started to play TLD. A commercial pilot surely would have some minimal navigation info document.

Yes, even the aeronautical charts could be destroyed in the crash, along with food and supplies.  If an actual crash site was plopped down wherever the player spawns, this situation could be made clear by having a "burned chart," "burned supplies" as something one would see at that crash site.  What and how much survives could be somewhat dictated by the "baseline resources" selected by the player (i.e. difficulty mode).  As it is, there is nothing to indicate that Will's plane burned at all in story mode... and we have the whole "debate" about what 5 kg item Will show take; whereas, in Canadian aviation law at least, he would be required to pack it all.

1 hour ago, odizzido said:

Sounds reasonable. This extends beyond just skills though so it would be nice if hinterland took a look at their game and have the option for the game get harder as you play instead of getting easier. This could fit into custom games nicely.

I agree.  They could add several things in Custom that would make the game get progressively harder over time.  The current "world gets colder" and reducing wildlife spawns are not strong enough on their own to do that.  They could also allow players to increase difficulty (i.e. make individual settings harder) as they progress in the file save while still not allowing the player to make any of them easier than their starting settings.  This would enable the player to keep increasing the challenge of their save individually (i.e. in accordance with their own personal abilities and comfort in the game).

3 hours ago, Stinky socks said:

You can still use tinder. Also, you can still get parasites from eating raw. You could try that!🐍🐉🐛🕷

Would definitely not be an adequate substitute.  Yes, one can volunatarily use tinder, but there is absolutely no benefit to doing so... i.e. no difference in the chance of failure.  An alternative would be to give an improved chance of success after Firestarting Level 3 for using tinder vs. not using it.  To accommodate it, they should then lower the chance of successfully starting a fire overall AND lower the chance of lighting a torch.

The way I read the Wiki, parasites only come from eating carnivore meat, wich a 75% innate chance of it causing parasites if it is raw.  You can test it for youself... I'm not about to.  However, this would allow people to disallow the incentive to stockpile ruined foods to eat later in the game.  People who want to leave it has is , of course, wouldn't be forced in any way to use this or any other custom setting.

Self-explanatory.  I'd like a custom option to prevent the character from ever reaching Cooking Level 5; thereby leaving food poisoning and parasites "in play" for the entire length of the run.  This could also be done for other skills... e.g. Firestarting preventing the Level 3 and beyond from eliminating the need for tinder.  E.g. 2 Preventing the player from ever being able to fire the bow while crouched regardless of the skill achieved during the run.  Currently, there is no way to prevent these perks from being acquired... they are inevitable as long as the run lasts a sufficiently long time.  It would be nice to keep some of the early game challenges in play throughout long runs.

On 4/18/2021 at 12:14 PM, Catlover said:

I can understand why you would do that. It would be nice if they let us get some progress in custom, though that would get people tweaking settings in order to make feat progression easy, which would kind of defeat the purpose of earning them. Of course, though, that is my opinion and I wouldn't complain if they did add feat progression in custom mode, as I would like to play it.

Grinding for feats in any difficulty level is easy and can be done in complete "safety" most of the time.  Feats also progress in pilgrim mode, so the idea the people would use custom to make grinding for feats easier than it is already is ludicrous and just a crutch that people use to make custom players feel lesser than they are.  Grinding is being done by a lot of people already (probably the vast majority of them).  It would be better if they were encouraged to just play through the game in difficulty levels they enjoy.  People who happen to not enjoy individual aspects of the standard mixes of the settings used by Hinterlands over their own settings should not be penalized for playing the game in an alternative set of difficulties legitimately offered by the devs (i.e. one does not have to mod the game to access the Custom menu).  It's almost like being penalized for not using a default character, but a customized one (i.e. merely using the character creator) in other games.  The custom menu is neither a bug nor an exploit.

Everything that can be changed in the game through the custom menu IS a change that has been approved by the devs (since they are the ones who set up the menu in the first place).  Instead of 3 dev-approved difficulty levels, there are merely many, many more of them.  If a custom slider changes the game in a way the devs don't intend, they have the ability to change that slider or even remove.  They also control what sliders they might add in the future.  The argument that playing in custom is not playing the game the way the devs intended it to be played is also ludicrous.

I get so tired fo people arguing about relative difficulties in this game... like Interloper is the bible.  I've heard notable Twitch streamers outright say that interloper is the toughest difficulty in this game.  It is NOT... and they know it.  (So, how about Interloper players stop the boasting over Interloper, instead of dumping on people who admit to playing a custom version of an interloper-type game based on Baseline Resources set at Low).  How do you weight relative difficulty if a custom player adds a rifle (which are still pretty rare to find and can't be repaired until the player gets to Bleak Inlet), but then eliminates healing and birch bark teas... playing more generally to a Deadman level than interloper?  Deadman itself is a Custom setting.  The toughest difficulty settings in this game come from the Custom menu...so cache your egos folks and stop using the Custom menu to badger other players into playing a setting they simply don't want to play... for whatever reason they don't want to play it.  I'm proud to say I now only play Custom games.  It's the best feature of this game.

The first 30 days of any run in this game are the most enjoyable... for two reasons 1) If the character dies, there is less time and effort invested in the run... making it easy to just start again. 2) Those early days are by far the most interesting... making it easy to stay engaged in the game and the time passes quickly.

What I want to know is why, when using interloper settings in the custom menu for weather and freezing rates, etc.... why do I freeze so much more quickly and succumb to hypothermia and frostbite so much more quickly than I regularly see Interloper twitch streamers succumbing to the same termperatures at the start of the game (i.e. before matches and hot drinks)?

6 minutes ago, Catlover said:

@UpUpAway95Thanks! 

@s7mar7inAlso, thanks! I completely agree with playing and waiting, instead of 'chasing the feat'. It makes it feel more rewarding, in my opinion. 

I started out thinking that way, but as time went on and I learned more about custom mode; the more I wanted to play using it.  So, instead of just tolerating the standard difficulties I started in in order to get the feats, I opted to grind through the ones I had remaining as quickly as I could so I could get to playing the various custom mode runs I had been planning to try.  I can't say I've regretted it, but I would have been more inclined to just work up to them more naturally if they allowed us to accumulate progress towards them in Custom mode.

13 hours ago, Glflegolas said:

Exactly -- TLD is a strategy game, and the tips listed in this forum thread are very similar to chess opening theory. Killing a wolf by intentionally getting into a struggle with it (for an example) is akin to developing your queen early on in the game; it's generally not a good idea, but, under the right circumstances, it just might pay off.

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to elevate tips in TLD to conventions in chess myself... nor would I say that TLD is truly a strategy game.  It is a survival game whose RNG throws out unexpected twists and turns that you are expected to make adaptive decisions about.  The computer is not "plotting" towards an endgame the way your opponent does in chess.  Nor is there a point where your strategy is going to cause the game to "surrender" its king.

My point was more about keeping it fun rather than allowing the game to be rote repetition of "things to do" and rote avoidance of "things not to do."  At any point, the only thing you actually have to lose is the time you've invested in that run to that point... and starting again is always an option.

I admire your fortitude.  You are in for a loooonng haul.

On 2/25/2021 at 3:10 AM, peteloud said:

The game is meant to be the survival challenge of an unequipped crashed pilot in unknown hostile territory.  He has no maps, no warm clothes, no food or equipment.  If you go to fandom to get copies of, or just look at, the maps of the regions you change the nature of the game's challenge.

It is the same if you use fandom or other spoiler webpages/forums to get information about playing the game and the resources.  Similarly if you edit your save file to give yourself warm clothes, good tools & weapons and some food then you are not playing a game about the survival challenge of an unequipped crashed pilot.

... and I've often argued that a crashed bush pilot would have an aeronautical chart of the areas he is flying over (so the game should provide one of those).  They'd still be a challenge for many people to read.  Also, it is aviation law in Canada that the pilot has survival gear loaded on the plane including the means of starting fires and food and shelter for each passenger for enough time for a reasonable rescue to reach the area.  So, there should be no such thing as an "unequipped" crashed pilot... no if he's a good pilot anyways... there are only careful pilots and dead pilots.

5 minutes ago, RedFox said:

Oh nonono, please don't think I'm trying to argue or say your opinion doesn't matter. I just thought I wasn't being clear in my previous posts, that's all. I do appreciate your input and your thoughts on it! Sorry if it came off like that  It wasn't intentional. 

No worries.  Also, don't think that I think your suggestion doesn't matter.  It does.  It has some merit in pointing out a problem... that on Xbox at least, I think originates with how the inventory highlights different things when being opened.  They could easily make that more consistent regardless of whether or not they throw in "are you sure" warnings.  I think if the inventory opened where the cursor highlight was always on a group tab and not on a single item, there would be fewer people accidentally selecting stuff... again, just my opinion.  (Of course, that wouldn't solve the issue of accidentally going to sleep thirsty.)

2 minutes ago, RedFox said:

Once you hit level 5 cooking you have no chance of getting food poisoning or parasites from -any- cooked meat you've made. However, eating (even accidently) any portion of raw meat from a bear or wolf will give you a 75% chance of parasites. With that ticking every 24 hours it's pretty much guaranteed that you'll get it from eating raw meat from a predator. For instance what happened in my game was I was harvesting a bear. I was going between dropping cooked meat from my inventory and accidently clicked on a raw piece, eating a small portion of it as I was trying to spam my escape button. That gave me a 75% risk of parasites which, sadly I ended up getting. While yes, it was me probably moving a little to quickly in my inventory that caused the issue, I was thinking while playing that it would have been cool to see a "Are you sure you want to eat this raw?" warning or something like that, which was why I made an account here. 

... and the wish list allows the community to give their opinion/input on each item.  All I'm saying it I would not like the warnings.  Where do you draw the line... someone put up a request here recently for a warning about going to sleep thirsty because they died.... now this.  The game could easily become inundated with "are you sure" warnings... and I (my personal opinion only) would not like that.

1 hour ago, odizzido said:

Oh...you're playing on the bone? Yeah okay our control stuff will be really different. I understand why you didn't see my issue with using buttons for too many things too.

Can't you remap buttons somehow on PC?  My son plays games on a PC and remaps his buttons for pretty much all of them.  I don't think he plays TLD, but I can ask him.  Regardless, I'd hate to have the game asking me "are yous sure" for everything.  I'd rather learn to pay closer attention to what I'm doing and pay the "illness" consequences on the rare occasion I make a mistake.  It gives me a reason to use up all those Reishi teas I make once in awhile.

26 minutes ago, RedFox said:

There is the issue of intestinal parasites. This is a (10 days on Stalker) 20 day long issue you have to deal with that gets worse and worse. You need 20 doses of antibiotics/Reishi tea to survive the infection. If it was just food poisoning, I would agree with you. Chock it up to being an idiot and move on. However that wasn't the issue. I apologize for not being more clear in my original post above that it was the parasites, and not the food poisoning I was mentioning. 

Eating raw meat gives you a 95% chance of getting food poisoning.  Eating wolf or bear meat, regardless of whether it's raw or cooked, gives you parasites.  The risk for it is cumulative, so it doesn't happen instantly with just one piece.  If, however, carnivore meat (wolf or bear) is raw, the risk for parasites from that is 75%... but it still has to be carnivore meat.  Even if you eat a piece of raw meat, there is a 5% chance you won't get food poisoning.

38 minutes ago, odizzido said:

I am assuming you mean it would move your mouse cursor?....I am pretty sure I would hate that.

I'm saying that when you first open your inventory (by pressing Y if your on an Xbox one), the highlighted item would always be the first tab (which is the "All" tab) regardless of where and how you previously exited your inventory or what you last used in your inventory. Right now if I opened my inventory since I last started my game and selected an item (highlighting it) and then close my inventory, when I reopen my inventory again, the highlight will be still on that item I last highlighted (if it's still in the inventory or on the item adjacent to it if it itself is no longer in my inventroy).  I feel that each time I hit the "Y" button to open my inventory, the highlight should always be at the top left (i.e. on the "ALL" tab).  That way, I will not inadvertently "select" or "eat" or "use" or "drop" an item just because it was the item beside the previous item I used or highlighted

The thing with "are yous sure" warnings is where do you draw the line with them.  Imagine the annoyance if after level 5 cooking is attained, the game cuts in with an "are you sure you want to eat this?" confirmation every time you go to eat something that's ruined.

3 hours ago, odizzido said:

We wouldn't need the warnings if the same keys didn't do five different things. It's not just eating raw meat, it's so many other things. I really hope this gets solved before I go through story mode because it's going to reduce my enjoyment of the game if not 😕

This issue, I think, is that you can find yourself in two different levels of the inventory when you first open it.  You can be at a point where your cursor is sitting in the general groups tabs or your cursor can be already within one of those tabs and ready to act on a particular item... resulting on accidental consumption or use of said item.  All they really need to do to fix it is to ensure that opening the inventory always places the cursor ready to select one of the general tabs.  (I realize this may not be the clearest of descriptions, but right now I just can't think too straight... headache.)

Over the years, I've learned to really look to see what is being highlighted by my cursor when I first open the inventory, so it doesn't really "catch" me anymore, but I would still like to see it fixed (no warning necessary though... which would only slow the game down).  It wouldn't take too long before I got frustrated with continually being asked "are you sure..."