UpUpAway95

11 hours ago, kristaok said:

@upupandaway Glad to hear it!  I don't have the best eyesight myself, I have astigmatism. But anyway it also seemed dark to me too inside, I end up having to use lamps and flares.  

I can handle somewhat dark interiors as long as, during the day, I can see enough so that I'm not getting stuck running into walls and such.  I usually light a torch or a flare (or use a lantern) to loot.  I've always had very poor vision (problems at birth) and it has gotten worse with age with conditions like astigmatism, cataracts and dry eye piling onto the list.

I'm happy to report that it does seem to be better.  I didn't change the brightness setting at all from the place I had left it (110%) and I went in and out of a few different houses in Milton during the day.  I could see inside the house enough to navigate through the various rooms, but it still was appropriately difficult to see loot items.  I played for a game day and did not get a headache.   Outdoors,  the snow texture is back as it should be  and the outdoor world does not seem to be as "blown out" as it was.  I will play for a longer period when I have more time.

For those thinking that this is just a problem with the dark interiors, it's not my issue.  My old eyes simply cannot handle the strain of continually going to and from such dark areas into such light area (as the snowy white outdoors), particularly with range of different between the two that exists.  There seems to be some difference in how contrast is processed on some systems that may be compounding this issue on my system... but I have already done everything that my TV allows to minimize this contrast.  It's not helping.

That said, I notice an update has occurred , and I will download the update and try again... and let you all know if it helps with the headaches and eye strain.

6 hours ago, ManicManiac said:

I don't know, it seems to me that there are plenty of ways to light up the darkness (torches, flashlights -aurora powered, lanterns, matches, flares)... I just don't see it as being any kind of a game issue/problem.  If the Hinterland team thinks it's an issue they will adjust it as they see fit, I think it's better to use what we have available rather than clamor for change.  I'm not judging anyone's opinion or difficulties, I'm just weighing in with my own perspective.
 

I really don't care what you think.  Added as an accessibility option is not something that concerns you are anyone else with normal vision..  If they don't do it, I simply cannot play this game anymore.  I have made every adjustment I can and playing now (going from outdoor areas to indoor areas and vice versa repeaatedly now gives me a huge headache.  I'm not going to pop multitudes of aspirin to play a video game.

If they don't want to allow us to just drop a hide on the floor to sleep (if they think that's just too easy or convenient), I think they should create an option to craft a makeshift bedroll from cloth and from hides other than bear hide.

There is an option to craft snow shelters outdoors to sleep without a bedroll, but the cost of 4 cloth that you cannot recover for just one night's sleep (when you're on the road) is pretty prohibitive.  In addition, there is the hindrance of not being able to use a snow shelter in a building.  Yes, many building have beds, but many do not and mines don't have beds.  I think an option to craft a makeshift bedroll from, say, 10 cloth and set it with lower warmth and higher deterioration stats than a regular bedroll would be a good compromise.  A deer hide bedroll, perhaps with stats equivalent to the normal one would also be a welcome addition.  Die hard interlopers could refrain from crafting them if they want to "suffer" the challenges of not having a bedroll... although most just beeline for their known bedroll spawn anyways.

ETA:  I also think the game should never just delete a player's bedroll by replacing it with a bed for a NPC.  Instead, they should use their new "Lost and Found" boxes... moving the bedroll into one of those instead.

There is another thread going on this in another section of the forum (Technical Discussions).  I've also reported it as a bug.

10 hours ago, ManicManiac said:

@UpUpAway95
In addition to the brightness settings on the game... you can also make adjustments to the brightness/contrast settings on your monitor or TV (whatever you play on).  If it's a monitor... there are also options on some models to make specific 'profiles' that you can easily switch to when you want to do something specific.  This way you don't nessisarry have to tweak your settings every time you switch from a game to regular use. 
 

My television Xobx Input setting is already adjusted as much as possible to be comfortable for my vision (High Contrast Adjustment is turned off for me and Eye Comfort Mode is turned on).  I am not having this trouble with other games nor did I have a problem with this game before the update.  Now, all of a sudden, I am having a huge problem with this game having too high a contrast.  Sorry, if there's anything more to be done to salvage my ability to play, it's this game that has to add in a contrast adustment, not just a brightness one.  I realize they love dark interiors, but there is point where they have to consider the eye comfort of some of their users.  The whiteness of the exteriors is something that is unique to this game;  and I really don't want to experience actual snow blindness from playing this game. 

I watched a wolf chase a deer around the lake in Broken Railroad for about 2 minutes and it never caught it.  The deer finally ran up onto the rocks near the bridge to the Hunting Lodge and got stuck running in the place... with the wolf running also in place right beside it.  When I finally decided to shoot the wolf, the deer then was suddenly able to run off the rocks.  I reported it as a bug.

I suspect they intend to make it much harder, if not impossible, for players to get "twofers" by coercing wolves to kill deer and then killing the wolf, but something is also clearly bugged with it as well.

I simply cannot continue playing this game since the Crossroads Elegy Update.  I've tried fiddling with the brightness settings numerous times and the interiors are so dark (even during the day) and the exteriors are so bright by comparison (particularly on a clear day) that I emerge with a serious headache after playing for only a short time.  I am elderly and have vision issues, but I did not have this issue before this update.  Please I hope you can fix this or at least expand the lighting options (even as an accessibility item).  I've really enjoyed playing this game and I really don't want to have to quit playing it.

50 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

 you're kind of clutching at straws now... I'm not going to bother pasting your entire comment or break it down point by point because we've done that already, and I don't see any point in running around in circles about it.

I wasn't talking about realism (as again it's not really important to the conversation).  You asked what I considered two obvious questions and I gave what I thought to be the obvious answers.  I wasn't comparing anything to real life... I just gave you the rational you asked about.

I've not accused you of anything... it seems like you might be making assumptions.  You make a statement: when I agree with you, I support your statement... when I don't, I weigh in with my perspective.    (just like you do in this forum)

The point is... just because something doesn't suit your tastes doesn't make it bad, and just because you have an opinion does mean everyone will agree with you.  You can always not play if it bothers you that much.

 

At this point, you and I are done with this particular conversation.  

At this point, I'm done with not only this conversation but also trying to express or explain the rationale behind any of my opinions on this website.  I suggest you re-read the comments you made about " This is again one of those examples of how folks want to have safely nets to help them safeguard against bad decisions... that's not careful or deliberate, it's wanting the game to hold the players hand... and this game is based on the idea that it's not going to hold our hand."

1 hour ago, ManicManiac said:

... because your character is conscious  

 

...because your character is unconscious  

 

... and earlier in the thread you said it wasn't about realism, but gameplay.  From a gameplay perspective, it's a bait and switch.  They set up the "game rule" that you can see your stats and cancel actions... and then for this singular action, they deny that.  If they instead increased the difficulty by not allowing the cancellation of any action, I'd be fine with it.  The player then would have to pay better attention to how long it takes to harvest amounts of meat and make conscious decisions to only partially harvest animals when they don't have the warmth or the energy or the calories to complete the job.  If the weather changes while harvesting, that's RNG... same "luck" as if the weather changes while sleeping.  You automatically go to an accusation that what people want when they suggest things here is to make the game easier.  I am not about making the game easier, I'm about making the "game rules" consistent and fair.  You, of course, are entitled to your opinion, but I am getting tired of hearing that same accusation about wanting it easy from you time and again.

6 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

...and this is the risk the player knowingly takes when they chose to do that.

The game doesn't trick the player into anything.  The player knows the weather is volatile (it's not a secret).  The Player knows that the snow shelter isn't very warm compared to a proper shelter.  The player knows they need to place their fire in a place ideally protected from more than one angle to help prevent it getting blown out.  The player knows that if the temp drops too low they can start to freeze and lose condition.  The player can even choose how long they sleep...  All of this is player choice it has nothing to do with the game "tricking you."  It has everything to do with how the player chooses to try and live in the world... if they chose poorly, they likely die.  That's not the games fault... that's the player's fault. 

 

You light fire to harvest a carcass and you start to harvest it knowing that the weather is volitile.  They allow you to cancel that action.

Why then, if sleep is the action, that option is denied?  It's no more "hand holding" than with the first scenario.  It is just being "tricky" about it.

19 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

But that's not nessisarry if the player is taking care those needs.   
This is again one of those examples of how folks want to have safely nets to help them safeguard against bad decisions... that's not careful or deliberate, it's wanting the game to hold the players hand... and this game is based on the idea that it's not going to hold your hand. 

 
 

What safety net... you go to sleep in a snow shelter with a fire outside it in a place as sheltered as you can and the wind changes blowing the fire out and the temperature drops to a point where you start freezing to death.  Because they won't show you the interface and feel that they have to "punish" you for the game's RNG (weather changes), you die.  I don't think this sort of tricking the player into dying is either necessary or desirable... but by all means you're entitled to your opinion.  It's not a safety net that wakes you up.  It's showing information to the player that they are currently being denied and allowing them to cancel the sleep action that same as they can currently cancel any other time-related action in the game... like harvesting or fishing or just passing time.

16 hours ago, ThePancakeLady said:

Not -

 

Or WASD to move. There are many point & click games that do not, and most aRPGs do not. One of my favorites- Grim Dawn, a relatively popular hack & slash aRPG by another independent game studio, uses "LMB click to move" (or the controller equivalent).  Click to pick up items. Some autolooting has been added in a recent update, but only for socketable components, and mana & health potions. LMB and RMB for targeting and swinging/firing weapons or casting spells, along with hotkeys for spellcasting.  Click, Click, Click. Most aRPG's and many RPG's are the same.

You may be used to games that use [E] to inteact, but that does not mean 

I have RA, OA and tendinitis issues. If a game becomes too painful for me to play, I stop playing it. Devs cannot make every game accessible for every person, or cater to every singular subjective desire for features or mechanics, given by a million+ different players. There are third party key remapping programs, and voice control programs that have made both Grim Dawn and TLD and a number of other games more accessible and "hand-issue-friendly" for me. I don't expect devs to add these programs to their games as a toggle-able option. Limited number of people that will find them useful, with a great number of manhours needed to incorporate them effectively into a game this far into development. 

Your needs and wishes are yours. They are not everyone's. Not every game is going to be a good fit for you. Perhaps you should take a break from TLD, and play a game that you enjoy more, and have less issues with. Just my opinion, but you have made complaints, over and over and over... you repeat them regularly. I know seeing these posts annoys and bores me, and I am sure it does the same for others. Saying the same things over and over and over, after other players, and likely the devs as well, have read the same thing from you dozens of times, does not increase the likelihood of your individual requests being fulfilled. It does result in many people just getting tired of seeing the same thing posted, over and over and over, myself and my family included. I can't help but think that it may have the same effect on the devs who see them over and over and over. But They are not as free to tell you so, because #OutrageCulture. 

Simple solutions have already been posted here... the easiest one being- don't run around with a weapon equipped at all times, rifle, revolver, flare gun, ect. Equip it as needed using the hotkey, or controller button. Re-holster it when you don't need to shoot at things, or before you interact with something. Then re-equip, if needed or wanted. Or do like I did, when I had one arm in a sling due to a torn rotator cuff, and use voice control/command SW to enable you to play the game *almost* hands-free. It works/worked nicely. And only cost me a little time setting the SW up with all of the needed keybindings. There are free and paid key mapping and voice control programs out there, and at least Windows has a decent Accessibility voice command program, that with a little additional scripting, works surprisingly well too. But it's up to you to take a little time and find the SW, and set it up. 

I'm not understanding the problem.  I think it's fine at least on the consoles.  Equipping a weapon out is a matter of pressing right on the D-pad.  If the weapon is equipped, shooting is done by pulling the right trigger (scoping or drawing is donw with the left button) and picking up items is done by holding (or tapping) A.  I think I've only misfired the pistol a couple of times... usually due to a IRL distraction in the room that has caused me to press the RT unintentionally.

2 hours ago, Stone said:

Climbing a rope, stop at a ledge. Pause game. Return five minutes later. Assume I'm holding the rope that's right before me, press forwards to climb. Move forwards, then down, down, down....

Yes, AFK's can be deadly.  Recently answered the phone and forgot to pause... was dead when I got back to the game.

Makes absolutely no difference to me.  If they add these items, they'll reduce the availability of others such that the total number of calories available from looted foods and each difficulty level will probably remain the same.  Salted peanuts will probably mean fewer MREs or boxes of crackers found in the world.  Cocoa drink powder will reduce the amount of coffee and herbal teas found.  Ramen noodles will also probably reduce the number of boxes of crackers or perhaps certain canned items.  In reality, it's just different colored pixels and it all tastes like chicken.

On 9/10/2019 at 6:10 PM, ManicManiac said:

 

@XAlaskan_420X

I don't necessarily think it's got a whole lot to do with realism... but I think it does have to do with tending to character needs.  If one of our needs is zeroed out... then we start taking condition loss.  When that condition hits zero (it doesn't really matter why or how...) the character dies.  It's up to us as players to tend to those needs.  If we don't do that... when the character dies that's on us and it's a "fair death."

The game also has a lot to do with taking careful and deliberate action.  So if a player is not paying attention to what they are doing, then there are consequences for those actions/mistakes.

It is from the gameplay perspective of being able to take careful and deliberate action that I think they should show us our stats while sleeping and allow us to decide to cancel the sleep if we are actually dying in our sleep.  Not showing us our stats takes away the ability to notice what is happening (e.g. that the weather has changed and our fire has gone out) and to possibly take available action to save ourselves (e.g. lighting another fire).  It throws death into the realm of RNG.

I do think that they were thinking "realism" when they set it up since you can develop hypothermia during sleep and slip into a coma from which you cannot wake; but I think it is counter to the philosophy of "careful and deliberate action."  It also makes no sense for someone sleeping in the wilds with no clock to be able to wake themselves precisely at two-hour intervals to counter the possibility of losing enough health in sleep to die.

1 hour ago, ManicManiac said:

I thought Fluffy made her new den in Desolation Point... is that not so?

I believe you're thinking of Scruffy.

2 hours ago, Rexdawn said:

Title says it all.  I hate that the best way to level cooking is to harvest tiny bits of meat off animals, cook it and then subsequently having to eat it all one piece at a time.  It would be nice if it leveled like carcass harvesting instead so we could just harvest, cook and eat all the meat in one go per action.

I'm all for this.

While I like Huskies and dog sleds IRL, I'm not in favor of it in the current context of this game.  I like the current nomadic focus that game has and I don't focus on moving everything to one base.  Rather, I like to ensure that I have what I need spread out in several locations across the map so that I can access stuff in whatever zone I'm at and I don't have to carry everything with me or return to a central location whenever some attack ruins my clothes or breaks a tool.

I like the snow depth and craftable snowshoe idea.

This is a great idea.  I hope you're able to get it working.

6 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

Would be appreciated to get an official statement. I haven't "looked into" the matter since the update, so I don't know if foot wear affects sprain chance or not as of today. What I do agree upon is that it indeed should matter. Also same with hands. Wearing big, sturdy, heavy gloves should have some sprain protection over wearing a pair of mittens.

My honest opinion after extensive experiences in getting loads of sprains in the same points of the maps and under roughly the same encumbrance and fatigue conditions, is that the answer is no, footwear does not seem to affect the chances of getting a sprain.  I'm seemingly getting the same amount of ankle sprains in my save file that is wearing combat boots as the save file where I am wearing mukluks.  I'm even more certain about wrist sprains, since these are even more common for me than ankle sprains and are still roughly the same in both files.  In one I am wearing rabbit mitts and in the other I am wearing leather gauntlets.  Admittedly, both of these are leather, but I would think that the extended cuff on the gauntlets would provide more support to a wrist than the short rabbit mitts.  Of course, this is not a scientific test... just an observation from a player who is still getting far too many sprains overall.  I think the most influential factor is the path/route and there are some ones that are very commonly used and with relatively gentle slopes that are just programmed to give off higher percentages of sprains than some other steeper and less common routes.  For example, I will get a sprain on the little hill near Max's Last Stand virtually every time I go over it to get from Trappers Cabin to the Camp Office.

A lot of the time, I don't like it at all.  It depends mostly on the weather I'm getting while there and how many times my plans for getting around get thwarted by sprains.  When things are going well, it's a fun outdoors zone that doesn't involve raiding people's homes to survive.  When things are going badly... it's frequently the zone that ends my run.

8 hours ago, JujuBear said:

I would like to think that fishing huts and holes are placed in their location right now for a reason: because its where fish are most guaranteed to be fished out of. Now if let's say, they do add the option to make fishing holes on ice lakes well then in a technical context, the guarantee for taking fish out of that hole would be greatly reduced so that this kind of feature can't be exploited. In which case spending calories just to make a makeshift fishing hole on a lake would likely to be something we'd resort to in an emergency situation. Now, I'm not sure how useful this emergency option would be to the gameplay value, but if balance with the difficulty is the concern here I think this could be a work around.

Of course I have little to no knowlegde how the game coding for this would work but I think it could be simple trade-off to this kind of feature.

I would not want to see that sort of trade off.  Fishing is already time consuming and frequently results in catching nothing at the higher difficulties in the regions where it is already available.  I would not want to see that success rate lowered just to enable people to plop down holes in the ice anywhere they please (with or without being able to make a shelter).  This addition, in that case,  would just serve to render what we already have in the game completely useless.

2 hours ago, djanico said:

Correct UpUpAway95, should be a late game spawn, and he can be anywhere in Bear island, thus forcing you on the epic journey to find him. I would love to see a skill tree for him however and be able to train him.

**Thoughts on Aurora vs your Doggo**

The aurora should also affect your dog/wolf pet as well. turning him savage. If you are sleeping while the aurora hits, your Doggo begins to bark furiously waking you up.  To counter his rage:

1> add the flashlight in the survival mode (Flashlight spawns near the dogs spawnpoint?) That way you can ward him off temporarily by flashing it towards your dog. Make the flashlight have a very high battery drain so its not OP against wolves outside.  Way i see it,  you will have to leave your enclave to avoid getting mauled by him. (adds a survival challenge to aurora nights forcing you to temp relocate away from your Dog).

Also make Doggo extremely fatigued when its over, forcing him to rest and recover the next day.

2> Add another shroom ingame that has a tranquilizing effect that affects wolves/doggo.  You will have to prepare the game meat with the shroom to create "poisoned meat". Dropping the meat as a decoy will knock out your pet for several hours.  Once awake your dog will be "sick" from the shroom and will require rest (maybe meds also?) Basically your Doggo is out for the count the next day as he rests/recover.

Not in favor of the mushroom idea or the thought of feeding a dog poisoned meat at any time.