UpUpAway95

5 hours ago, Salty Crackers said:

I don't like when timberwolves are used as 'guard dogs' for choke points, and with the notable exception of the Cannery, they thankfully aren't. The routes I take in BI are much less direct than they could be simply because I go far out of my way to avoid the timberwolf packs. If I want to go from the Cannery Worker Residences to the FM-BI cave, I can start fires to warm up in the overturned trailer on the Long Bridge and possibly at the Washed Out Trailers, if the wind permits (which it won't). I have to weigh the condition loss from freezing against looking for shelter and possibly encountering a pack of timberwolves. If you place timberwolves in a way where they can't be avoided, the player simply won't go to these areas if they aren't totally prepared. If the reward isn't good enough, the player will simply never go there at all. I can't warm up in the Cannery as there is no way to avoid the pack patrolling. I'm relatively comfortable in the Delta, as the timberwolves are avoidable, but if you get disoriented, there's still a chance of running into a pack. This is their best use- a formidable threat which can be dealt with using map knowledge, but a challenge to the unknowledgeable and unlucky.

The Crash Site could certainly use more challenge, but timberwolves are not the answer. I would simply put a couple of normal wolves at the site.

On another note, there is no need to compromise. My opinion is no more or less valid than yours. While I personally don't like summiting day 1 being a viable strategy, there's nothing wrong if it's one of your favorites.

There is a lot of space between the Mountaineer's Hut and PV that is wide open with multiple routes (i.e. not a choke point).  Place them by the landing gear, which just means the player has to take a longer way around to avoid them.  It's as valid a location for them as between the high player spawn on TWM and the top... where taking a longer way around means certain death for players summiting with limited clothing and the need to make a snow shelter in order to sleep to be able to climb the ropes (ripping up their clothing to do as it is).  At least the player going the other way can do so without sleep by mountain goating down by the PV rope and they already have the advantage of being able to sleep in the Mountaineer's Hut and start the attempt fully rested.

50 minutes ago, gotmilkanot said:

I think the reason why the gun cleaning kits don't spawn in BRA Low is because vanilla Interloper also uses the same loot setting so adding them in BRA Low would cause the kits to spawn in vanilla Interloper as well, which is probably not the devs' intention.

But I don't see why they won't add the kits altogether with the rifle and revolver spawn option. So the request is totally reasonable.

I think it is a residual oversight.  When they first brought in the rifle/revolver toggle, they forgot that ammo wasn't spawning with BRA Low.  They changed that when the community pointed it out to them, but forgot about the cleaning kits.  I think adding in the firearms repair to Bleak Inlet might have been an attempt to rebalance it, but making the cleaning kits spawn in association with the rifle/revolver toggle makes much more sense to me.

This is already adjustable in the Custom Mode settings just by fiddling with the wolf spawns, detection distances, and fear/aggression settings separately.  Just take a little peak at what settings change between the Stalker Template and the Interloper one and tweak it to your liking.

2 hours ago, LoneWolf5841 said:

This is a simple request to just either have another setting in custom sandbox to allow cleaning Kits to spawn or attach cleaning kits to rifle and revolver availability. As of now, If you create a custom sandbox and have 'baseline resource availability' set to low, then cleaning kits won't spawn even if rifles are allowed. This doesn't make sense since the cleaning kit is a tool for the rifle. Is this by design or was it an oversight?

(snip)

If I have a rifle or revolver set to spawn I should have the cleaning kits spawning as well

 

Agree 100%

2 hours ago, Salty Crackers said:

I personally don't like a Day 1 summit being an option at all, but there really isn't a way to prevent it. Timberwolves would make it somewhat more challenging, but I guarantee people would learn the patterns and summit anyway. If you are able to do it and really want to, go ahead.

Starting in AC is not a good idea. I was suggesting going from the Mountaineer's Hut to Echo Ravine, getting the crampons and technical pack (no rope climbs needed), and exiting via the Deer Clearing cave. It's a good strategy, and skips having to climb some of the mountain (although when I did it, I was promptly mauled by a moose on my way to the Deer Clearing cave, needing to use two stims to summit).

I love the Day 1 Summit when my start is high on the mountain.  As I said, the failed attempts are blessedly short and the rewards of a successful attempt are great.  Perhaps we could compromise and put the Timberwolves between the Mountaineer's Hut and the exit to PV (where the looting at the plane and Skeeter's Ridge has made going in that direction a whole lot easier since the area was revamped for Chapter 3).

7 minutes ago, Salty Crackers said:

BI really isn't that bad. All the timberwolves can be avoided (except if you want to loot the Cannery, where a marine flare will scare them off easily for a couple hours), although you have to take less direct paths. The real killer is the CONSTANT headwind and bitter cold making it hard to make it to the FM cave without losing a good amount of condition.

The current meta is to rush the summit (maybe doing AC first), getting the tons of loot before day 10. After you've done it so many times, it gets pretty easy as long as you have a bedroll. Timberwolf packs shouldn't be positioned at choke points, but if you go too far off the path (or get really unlucky with a bear scaring them towards you), you would be in for a fight. There wouldn't be a pack 'guarding' the Summit like at the Cannery, only on the way to the Summit.

Originally, the only distress pistol spawn was on the Summit. Later, it was added to the Ravine. The Basin was a dead end and the rope was punishingly long, so if you were too tired to get out (or forgot your bedroll), you were trapped and died. As of now, you have a bed in the cave in the Basin and an access point to BI, so there really isn't much risk at all. While it gets relatively easy to summit after doing it many times, it is still somewhat of a challenge, versus climbing up a single long rope close to shelter in the Dam. There is a fourth distress pistol spawn in HRV by a randomly spawning corpse, but I don't know if it is guaranteed. As HRV can be punishing to unprepared players and the location varies each game, I'm fine with it.

The distress pistol really isn't good against timberwolves. The reload is too long and ammo scarce. It's better than nothing, but the marine flare is simply better in all respects, practically guaranteeing victory as timberwolves won't attack as you hold it and each throw drains a good amount of morale. Marine flares aren't hard to find either, with guaranteed spots in the FM-BI cave, the hunting blind by the birch trees, and in the Cannery Worker Residences, among other places. They are hard to find outside BI, as HL hasn't overhauled the loot tables in a while, but that isn't the highest priority for them over something like Episode 4. If timberwolves were added to other regions, you would certainly see some new marine flare spots in other maps.

I thinking it's easier to start in TWM and summit first than to try to start in AC.  At least one can back out quickly to PV and get loot if a hacksaw and bedrool isn't found quickly.  If one takes the chance and pushes for a Day 1 summit, then at least death comes quickly and a new save can be started.  If they add Timberwolves to TWM, then that just would not be an option at all.  Please no.

It comes basically down to learning the newer strategies for dealing with them.  Hint - throwing stones to distract them away from the area before they start charging you works.  Flares work.  Running does not work.  Watch some of the higher level players on Youtube in interloper and you'll see how easily they've learned to deal with the wolves.

ETA;  If you're in Bleak Inlet and dealing with Timberwolves though - my sympathies, and prepare to get ravaged, a lot.

I disagree with the "tracks" being a significant factor.  Tracks are designed in this game to disappear after a very short time (they even disappear while following them after wounding an animal).  Frozen rabbits already disappear from snares and the snares are left ruined.  This already suggests that the rabbits are being stolen by wildlife if the snare is left unattended for too long.  Game mechanic-wise, perhaps it is that the condition of the rabbit reaches 0% and it despawns. 

I like the idea of a "ripped" bag being left behind if quartered meat is left too long (again, it can suggest it was taken by animals but the mechanic could still be the condition of the bag reaching 0%).  This "stolen" assumption could still be made by the player then if raw or cooked meat left outside reaches 0% condition AND disappears instead of hitting a "ruined" state or an "last resort calories" state.  This elimination of meat lasting in the game world forever would eliminate the mentality of being able to stockpile large amounts of meat for the later game and mean that players would simply have to continue to hunt for what they need to eat throughout even a long run.  This would also enhance the mechanic of it getting tougher to find animals to hunt as the game progresses (i.e. the setting that slows wildlife spawns over time that currently exists in the game).

If, however, some sign of animal theft is desired, then perhaps a new "ruined scraps" item could be left behind... able to be picked up by the player but not consumed.  If the "ruined scraps" is then put into a container, it disappears like other ruined items (e.g. sewing kits).

ETA:  So, here's an idea:  Food left indoors decays the fastest and disappears at 0% regardless of where it is stored.  Food left outside in the open decays the next fastest regardless of whether it is cooked or uncooked and is replaced by "ruined scraps" or ripped bags or ruined snares as described above when its condition hits 0%.  Food stored outdoors in caches decays more slowly, but will still hit 0% and despawn with the cache becoming "ruined" as well (signifying a larger animal breakin.  Any non-food items and food items not at 0% will remain recoverable.  Food stored outdoors in "animal-proof containers" like metal boxes or car trunks will not ever hit 0% condition, but will cap at 1% (safely edible with cooking 5 but risky at lower cooking levels) acknowledging that the animals cannot break into such containers.

4 minutes ago, odizzido said:

If the game isn't consistent I do find that a bit of an issue. If the caves are different but look exactly the same I don't like that.

I don't really have a lot of issue with them changing things up.  Today, in PV, I'm walking right through the  bushes that look the same as the ones that block paths in HRV and require a hatchet to remove.  I think we need a reminder every now and then that things aren't always as they seem... keeps us on our toes.

11 minutes ago, Ps4Methuselah said:

I especially enjoyed finding the bear skin coat...i immediately harvested it & crafted a sleeping bag with another one that had cured. +12 degrees bonus makes up for the lack of warmth in the caves.

A little heavy though.

The bear in Ash Canyon spawns pretty conveniently to civilization, so the lack of warm caves in Ash Canyon isn't really a deterrent to taking that hide.  I hate to tell you this, but there is a bear bedroll that spawns in Bleak Inlet, so now there's really no need to try to craft either item (which is going to save a lot of crafting time... and avoid a lot of potential cabin fever).  I'm not aware of any spawn of the moosehide cloak or wolfskin coat yet... perhaps in the next new zone?

Please, no.  Having them in Bleak Inlet is bad enough.  If they want to add them to TWM, the perhaps add a toggle to the custom menu to turn them on or off in specific zones in addition to the curren toggle to turn them on or off completely.  AFAIK there are only two other spawns of the distress pistol - the Ravine (which is guaranteed) and the Bleak Inlet lightouse (which is not guaranteed).  I think the one in the bottom of the Ravine should be left as a guaranteed one since it gives players the chance to get one before encountering Timberwolves on the lower difficulty levels (where the more less experienced players are likely to be playing).  I also don't think the incentive for climbing TWM is the distress pistol... it's because it's a fairly surefire shot at getting a variety of quality gear in general and it is for the mystique of the climb itself (because it's there).  If they do remove a guaranteed distress pistol spawn, it should be the one on top of TWM, not the one in the ravine.

15 hours ago, Mr. 0 said:

I am very curious how you make particl effect of glowing snow, how you control it, thru simulated sun rays (you should see it in real time, simple increasing affliction indicator during the day it looks like more stupid cabin fever and it would be totally lazy implementation).

Also, it could work on Timberwolf top, but in low areas, its almost every day pretty cloudy anyway.

So i am not interested.

On easier difficulties, blizzards are less frequent and this setting is also controllable in custom.  This makes for more sunny days overall.  This then could be an affliction that is actually more frequent at lower difficulty settings than at the higher ones.  They would have to be careful with the particle effect though - I wouldn't want to see them unduly strain the player's eyes IRL.

15 hours ago, Ps4Methuselah said:

I believe there is a shallow cave at the top of echo peak west in TWM.

I don't mind that the caves in AC have no warmth, what gets my goat is you cannot cure hides or saplings in them.

You have to haul everything with you until you get to a house....very slow traveling.

I agree that in an area where there are ropes and traveling is difficult, it is really a pain to have to take hides and guts long distances to start them curing.  I tend to avoid harvesting the hide and guts unless the animal is brought down near a structure where I can store them for curing.  I usually don't have a problem getting enough to craft what I want and to keep it in decent repair.

I think if they would implement 0% meat (cooked or not, stored in containers or not) would solve this issue since more people would be inclined to make use of available containers.  They could also add a "stick cache" to the game, which would not be as onerous to make as the current stone cache.  Meat stored outdoors in containers or in the caches would degrade significantly more slowly than meat stored indoors.  This would protect meat from being taken by predators, but it would still disappear whenever it reaches 0%.  This would eliminate the mad dash mentality about reaching cooking level 5 and would also prevent players from stockpiling huge amounts of meat to be eaten after cooking level 5 is reached.

6 hours ago, Darthmoe said:

Improved immersion and realism if you (human player) makes a real life mistake and forget to  manually recycle the bolt it just might get you killed.  This is a thing that can and does happen in RL.  Also the intent is not speed guns up and or make gun play faster, or grant an advantage of any kind the intent is to slow gunplay down to make guns harder to use.  In the case of the revolver manually re-cocking the hammer after each shot could slow down the firepower by a decent amount.

You would have to wait to recover from the recoil, manually re-cock the gun, and then fire again once the animation is done.

I like the guns in this game a whole lot, but sometimes I think you end up with a pretty high amount of firepower for a stalker setting.  I think there needs to be a setting between Interloper and Stalker, a setting that still features guns but also makes for a more hardcore survival experience.  There is a lot of room to play between full guns, and no guns.

Maybe even rename the current revolver bullet with the current stats as magnum bullets (.357 magnum bullets) but make it less common to find, and then introduce a new  weaker bullet called revolver bullets (.38 Special) that has a longer bleed out time, and lower critical hit chance, deals less damage on body hits and bears and moose might be functionally immune to .38 Special bullets.  With a weaker bullet you would now have to be really careful about shooting a wolf in the head, or it will require a bit more ammo to stop a wolf.  

Custom mode already lets you manipulate all the settings used by Interloper and Stalker individually.  The only issue is with Base Resource Availability set to Low (as it is in Interloper) and Rifles/Revolvers set to Yes, no gun cleaning kits currently drop.  Still, even that is workable since you can repair rifles/guns at Bleak Inlet.  Animal aggression and detection ranges are completely different settings in custom, as are their spawn distances and spawn rates.  You can make whatever combination of factors you like.

What difficulty level did you play Wintermute through on; that is, were the wolves passive or more aggressive?  In PIlgrim, the animals are passive to you.  You can pretty much just walk right up to them and, as long as you don't aim a weapon, they'll run from you - even the bears and moose.  This makes hunting them a little harder in some respects because they'll often detect you and flee before you can take aim on them.  In Voyageur, the wolves will attack you when they detect you, but there aren't as many of them and they don't detect you as readily as they do in Stalker or Interloper.  Bears and moose are aggressive as well.  In Stalker, there are lots of aggressive wolves and they can detect you very easily and from a long ways off.  In Interloper, there are fewer wolves than in stalker, but they do more damage when they attack and your resources in general are very scarce.  Rifles, revolvers, knives, hatchets and the high-end clothing do not spawn in interloper.

I did my Faithful Cartographer achievement and learned the maps in Pilgrim... but I would frequently break from that save and start an Interloper run to break things up a bit.  Those interloper runs were very short, but fun nonetheless.

45 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

You're absolutely right!  I did  forget about those two spots.  Thank you.

Yes.  I think people are taking issue with the Ash Canyon caves is because they look like they should have that "indoor" area in them and perhaps many of us had indeed forgotten other "short" caves that have existed in the game all along... a "sneaky" by Hinterland to try to catch people off guard... perhaps making the mistake of leaving hides in them to cure or going to sleep without bothering with a fire built up to last the night.  They may insert the warm areas after the Holidays once the "surprise" factor has worn off... or they may not... who knows. 😀

16 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

Happy to help
In short, I guess I only mean to say... that those extremely shallow caves are probably just going to be in Ash Canyon.  I do not think those kinds of caves will be showing up in previous regions or anything like that.  I'm pretty sure it's just part of the "personality" of this particular region.

However, there have always been little shallow recesses (maybe by design or maybe by happy terrain building accidents) that many of us in the community have used as sheltering "cubbyholes" from time to time (there is even a thread dedicated to this).  It's possible that players finding these little nooks and crannies may have (in some small way) contributed to this interesting little bit of cave "diversity" we are starting to see in Ash Canyon. 

There are two actual shallow caves in Mountain Town, the one right at the plane crash where you start in Wintermute and another off the beaten path when you travel from the plane crash to Mountain Town.  I think some of it is just to make each area have some unique challenges to it... to make us adapt our playstyles as we venture into different areas of the map.

In Mystery Lake, there is Alan's Cave and Dave's Quiet Clearing that don't have an "indoor" area at the back either.

1 hour ago, DrZ said:

Unless you got a hacksaw and you open all the cargo boxes TWM is pretty difficult. Usually players leave it as soon as possible for Pleasant Valley. There is a plane crash near by with lots of clothing to get going on that front.

This is quite often what I do with a TWM start if my start is on that end of the map.  The two caches in PV (one right near the TWM rope and the other near Skeeter's Ridge) usually also have some great supplies and are reliable warm places to take shelter.

However, if my start point is the one up on the mountain, I will usually just head straight up to the peak and take my chances on finding a hacksaw in the plane up there.  If I'm lucky, I'm set.  If not, I'm dead.

I think mostly respawns depend on the difficulty setting.  There is a custom setting that controls it in custom games.  Perhaps on the most frequent setting, the wolves can respawn before the carcass despawns.  I've never used the technique you describe to delay respawns so I don't know for sure though.

It may also depend on how many days into the save you're at.  There is also a custom setting that slows wildlife respawns over time... making wildlife more scarce later on.

My guess is some sort of explosion aboard the vessel caused the hole... perhaps a boiler.  The Riken was a whaler and, I believe, they did use boilers to process the whale blubber.  The captain then probably ran the ship aground to prevent the ship sinking.

6 hours ago, Salty Crackers said:

I've never seen all 3 of the Waterfront Cottages burned down. Often there is only one left, but all 3 have beds, so it's not really an issue.

On a side note, you can also sleep in the car at Commuter's Lament, but I'm not sure why you would.

Then that would make Waterfront Cottages the closest bed for that journey.  Cars were mentioned in the post by Ice Hole.  There is the truck at the exit to the cave in the connect plus one or two (can't remember exactly) by the burned out homestead.  I'm also uncertain if there is now a bed in the cave out by the arch.  Almost certainly though, Ice Hole was talking about the journey from DP to CH and not meaning to imply there were no beds in DP.

3 hours ago, tauntedoctopus said:

...do bear carcasses show up on the map?

Unfortunately, no.  Usually when they encounter something they normally can't path over, they double back; but there is a point where if you fall far enough behind them they will seem to basically just disappear, along with their tracks.  If you know the extent of the bear's patrol area, they will usually be found dead somewhere within it.  Often they go back towards their cave and other times they will be found rather close to where you first shot them.  It used to be that crows would gather over the carcass, but most recently I've noticed that the crows did not gather until after I had found the carcass and removed something from it... then they would swoop in as I walked away, so this may not be as reliable as it once was for finding the carcass.

1 hour ago, Derek0311 said:

@Mr. 0  Can you unwrap that a little more.  Food in TLD has no calories, heat in TLD isn’t felt, animals in TLD are not killed.  Are you saying the programmers would have to map out where and when it would be an issue?

@UpUpAway95. IRL it’s not that simple.  Snow blindness is more from light reflecting off the snow then direct sun action.  But for an in game thing maybe.

@Avril I don’t think that would work or I would expect to see more skiers and boarders doing it over opting for goggles.  It would probably slow the injury but not stave it off completely. 

@ManicManiac  Good to see you.  I see your point but I would argue instead that it would force the player to spend more time outdoors in the hours between dusk and dawn.

However, I’m not saying it has to be a difficult thing; just another thing to consider.

... and TLD is not IRL.  It's a game.  My suggestions are designed such that the affliction can be added to the game without the need to add in specialized equipment in such a way that it becomes totally preventable if the player chooses to forfeit some warmth for a hat with a visor on bright sunny days.  The ball cap is light in weigh and common within the loot tables.  Bandages are also lightweight.  Charcoal could also be added to a list of preventative measures the player could take without much difficulty.  No need to add a rare item like goggles to a growing list of such very specialized items that add to a player's overall carryweight.  This also means it would not be a deterrent to going outside at odds with the currently existing affliction of cabin fever.  Perhaps for balance, sprains could be set to occur less frequently.

I like that it shows them as options even if you don't have the tool.  It allows me to see what tool I might want to grab out of my locker and how using each affects the total time needed to complete the item.