UpUpAway95

40 minutes ago, Fuarian said:

Makes no sense how I can eat all of the sardines at Last Resort and somehow not get sick. Any food item with the "mouldy" or "banged up" description on it should 100% give you food poisoning because I dare you to eat mouldy food and try to not get sick. It makes no sense how we can eat all this low condition food and not get sick. Basically the chance of food poisoning should be increased.

Also, food poisoning should have more debilitating effects. Like lower energy, quicker freezing, blurred vision (if it gets bad), longer action times, quicker thirst and hunger, etc... 

You were lucky.  I got sick three times on three consecutive cans, using up all my antibiotics and consuming 30 hours of time sleeping to heal myself... before i swore off eating them altogether.  It's a game, so I'm OK with it being a random chance, escalating as the food gets lower in condition but never 100%... elsewise, no one would ever even attempt to eat it and it might as well not be in the game at all.

Animals are glitching through structures.  I had a bear walk throuch the fishing hut nearest the cannery workers residences in Bleak Inlet when I was not even in the fishing hut at the time.  In Pilgrim, I had a bear growl at me and charge the fence (causing the fence to rattle loudly) around the radio tower in PV as I appeared from exiting the building itself.  When I approached the fence, the bear should have ran (since I was in PIlgrim mode), but it didn't, so I decided not to press the issue and went back into the building for a bit.

I think Timberwolf behavior varies a lot depending on the pack morale bar.  I'm not really able to predict yet what is "normal" and what are glitches.

Just now, RossBondReturns said:

Funny I've never not had a rope spawn at Destroyed Lookout...didn't think it was random.

 

I have had it not spawn there a few times.  I honestly think virtually every loot spawn is random (save the items on the old interloper loot tables, but they were like a 1/4 chance really).  Other loot I think has like a 90%+ chance, but I don't think anythinng is absolutely a 100% chance.

11 minutes ago, RossBondReturns said:

Cannot tell you since I haven't got there with another survivor. The way things are going though...I'll say it's random.

The best move then is to bring the extra rope from Mystery Lake since they are easy grab from the Lake Overlook climb or even the Western Access one (without having to worry about the random spawns either in the Ravine railcar or at the Destroyed Overlook.  That way, one doesn't have to ever make the loop around to the Forlorn Muskeg entrance.

No stump remover, but I found a can of gunpowder in Mystery Lake.

If you haven't 1) sprained anything or suffered another injury or affliction; or 2) passed the time since  falling through the stair...  simply exiting the game will get you out of the situation since it will reload you at the point the game last saves (by sleeping, passing the time, or incurring an injury.  At any rate, you should report the location to Hinterland as they have been fixing several of these sorts of spots where players can get stuck in the recent Hotfixes.

13 hours ago, DaveMcD said:

I'm thinking with the ability to make gunpowder surely an exploding arrowhead would be the logical conclusion  or maybe at least be able to make a firecracker and throw it at the wolves to scatter them for a minute.

Both terrific ideas. 👍

Two issues I've spotted since 1.64:

1) While cooking in the PV Farmhouse in Survival during the day, the lighting suddenly flipped to night mode.  I went outside and double-checked that it was still very much daytime (around noon actually) and returned inside.  Lighting in the house was still dark (as at night dark, not daytime dark).  Situation did not correct until after I exited the game and reloaded the save.

2) Sound (not just music) is still completely cutting out for me on occasion even after Hotfix 1.67.  This sitution also does not correct until after exiting the game and reloading the save.  I'm on an Xbox One.

On 12/16/2019 at 4:27 AM, RossBondReturns said:

Yes. There are.

I say this because there is a Rope Spawn in the Workshop.

SO that tells me there is a place to use a rope on the lower level. The only way that makes sense is if there's a rope deployment point in the Cannery itself...to cut off some of the "platforming" to get back into the Workshop.

I'm in a twitter exchange with Raph who says that there is indeed a shortcut and there's a hint to it's eventual placement in the Release Trailer for the Update.

I was tyring to figure it out when I got food poisoning and had to abandon my attempts...and head out to the Keg to get safe and continue my run. I will have to try and place it later.

Is the rope spawn in the cannery random or is it a guaranteed one.  If guaranteed, that still leaves me with an extra rope in BI now.

Got news for you... all the feats are exploitable in one way or another.  For example, how is sitting in a fishing hut with a fire going, catching dinner and making water for days not an exploit of that particular feat. 

In general, the feats are all farming for perks.  If one actually plays the game to peak efficiency rather than focusing on getting the feats, all the feats take a long, long time to get.  For example, survive 500 days... start a new file in a populated area, sprint to get indoors grabbing 1 day's worth of food and water whatever food, and pass time for 1 day.  Scrap that file and rinse and repeat with a new one... You'll  get the 500 days survived and the sprint one in no time... on ANY difficulty.  You've already figured out how to exploit Blizzard Walker, so the same holds true for surviving 100 days outdoors.  Chances are you'll get those two together now just by fishing (and you'll get your fishing skill up as well as long as you have enough line and hooks.

I can give similar examples for all of them.  The trapper one now is the trickiest, but Mystery Lake on Pilgrim has quite a few places where snaring lots of bunnies is pretty easy.  Anyway, you get the idea.

In future, would it be possible to list the size of each update when it is announced.  It's just in the process of downloading a second update today.  I thought I was fully up to day with the one that downloaded early this morning.  It was under a gig.  This one this afternoon is 1.08 gig... and with my slow internet it's telling me that it's going to take 6 hours to download.  So much for playing TLD today it seems.  It would be nice to have known that I wasn't completely up to date early this morning.

15 hours ago, ThePancakeLady said:

Tying the Feat progression to Challenge modes only is not sensical, IMHO. 

This "solution" would require players who do not want to play Challenge Modes to, well, play Challenge Modes. Which may seriously decrease their enjoyment of the game. 
I've played all of the Challenges except Archivist and the new one. And to be honest, i don;t care to play those 2. Not my "joy" in this game. I love Survival Mode. I love Story Mode. Challenge Modes I only played to get the Steam and XBox One achievements/trophies.  I would likely not have played them at all,  if it were not for that. Yes, I learned a great deal from each one. I gritted my teeth and played Hopeless Rescue 13 times before I finally beat the timer. Not my thing, did not fit my playstyle, did not make me want to keep playing it (them) again. Sense of Satisfaction? Yes and no. I was frustrated by not being able to play the way I enjoy playing, just to get that achievement (and yes, I like getting achievements in games I play, very much...), satisfaction at having finally gotten it over with and never having to do it again.

Getting upset with having to play standard vanilla modes to earn Feat badges is exactly how I feel about the idea of being told I have to play Challenge Modes to earn them. I don't play vanilla modes because I feel pressured into doing so, or feel any "stigma" attached to using the Custom Settings Toolbox. I've used it. I prefer the vanilla mode settings. Plain and simple.

 

And again, I will reiterate... 

 

I like that I can set my experience mode with one click, at the set-up for each new save. I would not like having to go through the Custom Settings Toolbox each time just to select a vanilla experience mode template, or duplicate one (meaning I better screenshot or write those settings down so I don't forget what they are for any of the current 4 vanilla experience modes), using more clicks to get there, that was available with one click before.  It's a little thing, but, it's my little thing, and I like it how it is right now. The less clicks, the better for me.

 

... and if I said, make the Challenge badges we currently get useful in the game as some sort of perk... how would you interpret that?  Right now, they are just colorful fluff.  The feats we currently have are perks, but are just farming.  They would be no easier to get on "Pilgrim Lite" than on the standard Pilgrim mode.  So, your argument for not opening them up to Custom games doesn't hold waterr.  You assume that someone playing custom would set the bars all to their easiest settings to "cheat" to get feats... that's stigmatizing the mode.  Furthermore, you have no problem with forcing someone to play on a standard difficulty to earn those, but Heaven forbid you're forced to play a challenge to earn a challenge badge... and Heaven forbid that badge actually becomes worth something in the game itself.

The UI that gets us there adds nothing to the gameplay... it's just an extra step.  I think there is a benefit to removing that step so that new players realize their is nothing in the standard settings that can't be achieved through the custom menus.  Custom is not arbitrarily easier than even the allegedly toughest standard difficulty... which is a misconception anyways because Stalker and Interloper are equal in difficulty... just in different ways... require different strategy to the gameplay.

Regardless, I just give up trying to explain myself here.  I'm continually misunderstood.  You all can deal with all the requests and ensuing arguments over making Interloper easier or stalker easier or when people say "this game is too easy" without realizing they can make it a lot harder themselves.  I like the custom settings.  I've not played a game that gives players that sort of liberty to make the game enjoyable for themselves.  I applaud Hinterland for it.   It's a shame it gets bogged down in the same old arguments over requesting the devs changes something because it might make the standard difficulties easier or too hard.  I'm done.  Bye.

1 hour ago, jeffpeng said:

I am following you. I at least try. I'm not agreeing with you on all accounts. There's a difference.

First of all: why must all language today be regarded as being offensive to at least somebody? Where is the stigma in giving something a description somebody feels adequate even if it may not be in someone elses opinion? If you regard yourself an expert, but the "expert difficulty" doesn't fit you .... then that's stigmatising you as being not an expert? Is that the logic behind that??

Then: newer players will need a way to apropriately tell what setting applies to their skill level in a way they are accustomed to - meaning which they know from other, similar games. And since the advent of video games those have been things like "easy" or "beginner" and "hard" or "expert". 

Also: who exactly is regarding

? I haven't seen a single instance of anyone saying or even implying that. 

What I can imagine working better than the current system is "removing" Custom, giving the 4 difficulties we have now, and then offer "Customize" as an option before you select your starting region and your feats.

As for feat progression, again, we agree, and I already told you that I favor your idea tying them to challenges instead of grinding them in "vanilla" settings, which you would know if you would have followed me

Did I say "offensive?"  No, I did not .  I've said all along that people lock themselves into the notion that they have to play on a standard difficulty and they say things like this OP did ... that they want to play on the hardest difficulties.  There is a notion in games that the player who plays on the higher difficulties is better than the player who doesn't.  That attitude is evident throughout this thread and it's imbedded in the language Hinterland used on the description page.  It can be eliminated without affecting the gameplay.  It does nothing positive.

Whether they want to deal with harsh weather or wolves or lack of resources has nothing to do with easy or hard.  Newer players can determine what sort of experience they want - weather, enemies or starvation without it being associated with being a "veteran" of the game itself.

On feats... you said " you should be able to play custom without penalty, at least if your settings are reasonably hard."  I'm saying there is "no reasonably hard."  It shouldn't matter whether one farms fires on the absolutely easiest setting going or not.  It's ALL just grinding.  The feats are just accumulations of time spent.  Players should enjoy the time they spend in the game and not be compelled to meet a "standard" in order to have their time spent in the game count towards something like 1,000 fires...

On 12/14/2019 at 11:05 AM, RossBondReturns said:

It is a random spawn...it spawned in my latest Voyageur attempt...when I found a rope in the Rail Car in the Ravine. Are both connected...must test more.

Sometimes Bearskin bedroll spawns in the Pensive Lookout under the map board as well.

Not connected AFAICS.  I had no rope in the railcar, but one spawned at the destroyed lookout in ML.  I grabbed another from the Lake Overlook after I cleared out the cave up there and brought it with me... but I didn't need it since there was a rope hanging from the hook just around the corner from the door at Pensive Lookout in BI.  Now I'm debating if I want to bother putting it back in place in ML... but I'll probably just drop it off at Spence's and eventually take it into Broken Railroad so I have a rope for sure to get into that Ravine and another to get back and forth to the Hunting Lodge... or I may just leave it in BI someplace.  Does anyone know if there are other possible climbs in the zone?

2 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

They are a baseline for overall balanced experiences.

... except that people can play the game without having to go through 100 settings they possibly don't even understand. Not everybody has years of TLD under their belt like you and I.

And how exactly would that be different from now? 🙂 Well, except the feat progression, but that one we agree upon.

I'm not sure what stigma you are talking about EXCEPT that there is no feat progression. I've never been attacked on the forums or anywhere else because I play custom games (I used to play a lot of @BareSkin's Sleepwalking, which is very custom)

You're not following me at all.  When you start the game currently, you see five selections:  Pilgrim, Voyageur, Stalker, Interloper, and Custom... laid out exactly like other games set out their difficulty settings and with descriptions that sort of associate them with difficulty levels.  The sigma is in the language used in those descriptions... "for new and experienced players..." vs. "for veteran players..."  and the fact that "Custom" is in a different color than the rest.

I'm suggesting removing that "Choose your Experience Screen" and have the Survival Mode selection go right into the Custom UI with the tabs up at the top for Pilgrim, Voyageur,  Stalker, and Interloper... and a brief description of what the setting does that is  not associated with player experience.  For example:  For the Pilgrim Template - just say that wildlife will not attack unless provoked, weather is somewhat moderate, and resources are somewhat plentiful."   For Voyageur, just say:  wildlife is sparse but can seek you out and attack, weather is colder, but resources are still plentiful."  Similarly, remove the associations with player experience and references to "challenge, etc."   Allow the player making the choice to look at the individual settings under the template.  Yes, it's a little more information they would have to digest at the start, but then they know it's there and that it can be changed.  It puts everything through the same interface, so people won't tend to view changing the sliders "as cheats" like they do now.

The feat progression can either be allowed in all games and I don't see it as a problem because it's farming, not a true feat.  Does it really matter so, so much whether a player walks 1,000 km in a pilgrim or an interloper one?... when in reality the mileage just accumulates over all your standard starts regardless of their difficulty and really is just a measure of how many hours you've played the game.  Right now, I could start 1,000 Pilgrim saves in Mystery Lake, run to the camp office and read a book and start a fire and sleep for one night... and I would get all the old Feats.  It wouldn't be a measure of how long or how well I survived in any of those single-day starts.

As it is, it's just an illusion that people are playing a harder version of the game to get the feats.  Because it's just farming, IS it such a crime to reward people for playing a long time AND enjoying it at a level they CAN enjoy it?  If a person likes lots of blizzards, but no wolves... why can't they still earn a "'feat" for lighting 1,000 fires or sprinting 50 km (both of which would be harder in a blizzard even without wolves breathing down their necks).   Even if they go with "Pilgrim Lite" - taking all the sliders to their easiest setting, does it make starting 1,000 fires any more difficult or any less a time-consuming grind?

If they want to add FEATS, they should associate them with the challenges... and offer the challenges in only templates of settings that Hinterland decides suits the challenge itself (i.e. a single difficulty determined by Hinterland for that challenge).

4 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

That's actually the single most sensical thing I've read regarding this topic. That... would probably solve everything.

Because I lost my old user state, and have almost no feats anymore. I don't use them anyways - but I wanna have those colorful badges back, eventually. It's bad enough my 4DON badges are lost forever. Otherwise I couldn't care less.

But in general I think the standard difficulties are required to provide a baseline. Having a bajillion options to customize your game can be overwhelming even for people that have a fair bit of experience in The Long Dark. But if you don't like them ... you should be able to play custom without penalty, at least if your settings are reasonably hard.

Also regarding the question if fires work against wolves in Interloper: It apparently does in (some?) old interloper saves, it definitively does not in new Interloper saves. I will tackle this in a seperate post, but the video @The Black Knightposted is accurate and reflects the intended behaviour since Errant Pilgrim. And I can understand that players have problem with that.

In this game however, the standard difficulty settings are not a baseline.  The easiest standard difficulty setting is not the easiest setting and the allegedly hardest difficulty setting is, again, not anywhere near the hardest difficulty setting that can be achieved using custom settings.  If it is a "baseline," then it is a misleading one.  Objectively, they add "nothing" to the game tiself since any of them can be achieved through custom settings.  They could leave the templates in as "suggested templates" if the fear is that people would become overwhelmed and remove the separate named difficulties themselves... and nothing would be lost gameplay-wise.  (I"m not being presumptuous, I"m being purely objective.  This game is just not like other games that use difficulty settings.  The settings it currently has do not scale linearly from easiest to hardest... but that is what people who are not familair with the game are being led to believe.)

We would be better off without them because that would remove the stigma attached to using the custom interface... since everyone would be using that interface regardless of whether they stay with the templates as they show them or adjust individual sliders within them.  I think it would save a lot of arguments and misunstandings here.

13 minutes ago, turtle777 said:

Doesn’t happen for me.

Still can chose any duration in 0.5 hours increments. 
-t

Are you playing on an Xbox?  If so, can you describe to me what I hit to bring up that option.  I can select the tool (sewing kit or fishing tackle) using the LB or RB, but I can't  seem to scroll down to get to the line that shows the number of hours at all.  I've tried both RS and LS and the down on the D-Pad.

OK... I finally saw it.  It's Y (Switch) and it toggles between the tool selection and the hours.  Thanks.

It seems I can no longer make a selection to craft items in longer than 0.5-hour increments; meaning:

Let's say I want to craft a pair of Rabbitskin Hat.  Total time required is 3.5 hours (with a sewing kit).  I want to craft for a total of 2 hours.  Now, I have to restart crafting them 4 times with each time lasting exactly 0.5 hours.  There appears to no longer be an option to choose to craft for anything longer than 0.5 hours at a stretch.

1) Is anyone else noticing this.  If not, would you please let me know what I need to do on the Xbox to advance the time.  RB and LB just enable me to select the tool and X immediately starts the crafting for 0.5 hours.

2) If this is something others are noticing... Hinterlands, is this intended?... or is it a bug due to the change in UI.

7 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

And I disagree with you whole heartedly.  Just because people choose to whine and complain doesn't mean that they are going to get their way.  I run into this kind of thing all the time on this forum, where folks feel like they need to champion some movement...

My response to that is pretty much always the same.  "I think the game is fine as is.  If people don't like something, they can choose not to play that way.  I think the most important aspect of the game is player choice, and folks need to remember everyone can play how they want to... and not to try and change the game for everyone else just to suit one person's personal preferences."  You know, those sorts of things... my posts have a lot of those.  

What I think makes the suggestion about removing standard difficulty settings moot... is the fact that custom options are available. 

You say "people won't"... but that's their problem.  If those people don't realize they have agency in how they can tune the game to suit them, then that's their deficiency... the rest of us should not have to pay the price for that.

The short version is, I can't agree with you at all on this.  I've said my peace (and even taken the time to expound on it a little bit), but I have no intentions of arguing about it.  

It's not about whether or not they "get their way."  It's about the multitude of requests itself. 

What does playing on a standard difficulty do that's positive?... nothing.  You can do everything in custom that you can do in any of the standard difficulties.  I can play a custom game with interloper settings that's exactly the same as an interloper game.  Why are people adverse to playing a custom game that would resolve their issues?  IThey say things like "I want to play on the most difficult setting..."; but the irony is that Interloper is NOT the most difficult setting.  Neither is stalker.  So, it's meaningless.  Without the standard difficulty settings, those sorts of arguments would be non-existent and you wouldn't be able to call other people "deficient"... and that's why I'm saying we'd be better of without them.

1 hour ago, ManicManiac said:

The ones that want to do away with the "standard" modes... that idea doesn't make any sense to me at all.  
If folks have the option to use custom settings, and that's what they prefer... then great, why not just do that?

When I see folks talking about wanting to remove the "standard" difficulty modes; all that does is take options away from other players, and I don't support that at all.  On this, I agree with @GothSkunk and @ThePancakeLady.

 

The problem is that people won't... they lock themselves into playing a standard difficulty and then whine to the devs to change things within those standard difficulties to suit them.  Elminating the standard difficulties would eliminate those requests to change the standard difficulties to make easier or harder.  Really, all they do is put the burden on the dev to continualy "re-customize" the game for every user's liking within the standard framework and create arguments like the ones that erupted here on thiis thread.  We'd be better off without the standard difficulties entirely.

2 hours ago, peteloud said:

I think that many of you are missing the main point that I was trying to make, (perhaps my fault).  I was trying to see it from the point of view of a new  purchaser of the game.  We old hands, with thousands of game days, who love the game and spend our time posting comments here, have  forgotten what it is like for someone who has never seen the game.

 

If Hinterland wants to expand its sales it must make the game more attractive newbies, such that they greatly enjoy it and encourage their friends to buy it.  Alas, we old hands have paid our money, Hinterlands needs newbies and new sales more than it needs us oldies 🤔.

 

I agree and have seen newbies become extremely frustrated and quit the game entirely because of the steep learning curve this game has.  In an effort to make things continually more challenging for us oldies who have learned the "tricks" to surviving in this game, it has become more complex and more frustrating for new people to learn the game from scratch.  I think this is a challenge for any game that spends so many years 'in "development."  It's a tough balance for devs to strike... I don't envy them their task; but I do have confidence that Hinterland is aware of such things and will make every effort to continue to also consider new people of all levels who are interested in starting to play the game as well as considering the enthusiastic old timers here.

5 hours ago, ThePancakeLady said:

I'd prefer that they do not remove the standard vanilla settings. I quite like them, and don;t use custom settings very often. In fact, I haven't used them more than 10 times, since it was added. My son also prefers standard vanilla experience modes. My husband and daughter prefer custom settings, and use them more often than vanilla settings. My Godson likes both, about equally from what his Mum & Dad tell me, and what I have seen when he is stating with us for a weekend, and playing the game on our XBox One X.

I would have no problems with Hinterland allowing Feat progression in Custom Settings, but I also understand why they don't allow it.

Feat- (standard English definition): "An achievement that requires great courage, skill, or strength."

Being able to set every setting to "Pilgrim Lite" and spam every skill and action needed to earn the Feat, kinda makes the definition and name "Feat" pointless. They aren't supposed to be super-easy to get. 

Just my 2¢. YMMV. 

 

And I would likely quit playing the game if I could not play standard vanilla Stalker or Voyageur, with the click of 1 button, and instead had to go through the custom settings toolbox each time to set every setting to match the standard templates for either. 

You could use custom settings that are the same as the standard vanilla settings.  You'd lose nothing in the quality of your play... just the attitude that someone who plays on custom is somehow doing "less" than you are.  I know HInterland won't remove them, but I find this ego trip that people use on themselves and others to make the vanilla difficulties mentally superior to the custom ones silly... then asking Hinterland to make the vanilla difficulties harder or easier in this way or that way to their personal liking anyways.

The feats are basically "farming" for a perk on any difficulty.  Chopping meat up into little bitty bits to get more cooking skill ups illustrates this, just as starting 1 stick fires once obtaining a magnifying glass or using a torch to light the next one (so they don't even consume matches).  It is no easier to do in 'Pilgrim Lite" than in Pilgrim or Stalker or Interloper.   Feats also accumulate over multiple saves... You know how I got the sprinting one... multiple 1-day survivals in interloper.  I don't tend to sprint in Pilgrim... no reason to and I'm often encumbered anyways.  The Interloper starts didn't mean I was any good at playing with the wolves.  All it meant was that I had less stuff to carry and so I could run like the wind.  If they want feats to be feats, they should make them earned only after completing challenges... and they should continue to make the challenges play at absolutely set difficulties only.

43 minutes ago, Ucmh said:

'Cause I like the animal element as an idea just fine. I want to play with predators as a threat, just like Hinterland intended in standard survival and story mode, but I want it to be gameplay, not random inescapable death. Why would Hinterland design the hardest difficulty to be essentially unplayable? Hardest should be the way I described it in my previous comment, it's in everyone's best interest. Now I know that you guys don't think it's unplayable, but that's my experience. What you're describing sounds like lower difficulty settings.

I'd like to see them remove all the standard difficulty settings so we just have custom games.   There should be no stigma attached to playing a custom game setting.

12 minutes ago, RossBondReturns said:

I don't mind that decision on their part. Since the same can be said of HRV.

However, HRV is a wilderness area where one wouldn't expect to find a Crafting Table.

The "Room With Everything" minus a crafting table in Bleak Inlet makes no sense at all.

It's the one and only thing I don't like about HRV either; but as you say, at least it makes some sort of sense in that zone.  I think there should be one somewhere in the Cannery complex... and not locked off with the other equipment in the mill room... either that or they should maybe take it off the list of zones a Pilgrim player can start in.

4 minutes ago, RossBondReturns said:

I only have one issue with Bleak Inlet...how is there no regular crafting table even in the "Room with everything" on the pier?

That makes absolutely zero sense.

I've yet to find one as well.  I did a Bleak Inlet start and started in the Cannery Workers cabins.  I'm doing OK, but I don't want to have to go outside the zone yet and I wanted to craft my rabbit mittens before heading out to FM.  Looks like I'll have to just take the skins and guts with me and do it at Spencer's.