RegentRelic

@Moosemasterstop trying to find happiness in entertainment. Instead get more involved in your local community. If you don’t no how to do that and don’t want to go to Church then do some service for a neighbor or stranger. https://www.justserve.org Is a good place to get started.

There should be one in the far territories but, other then that I think there's a good number of them. I'm sure there's going to be one in the far territories, probably in the Industrial Mine.

My goal was to create a system that will keep difficulty scaling into the late game and to make getting The Will To Live more then a test of patience. While also, not disrupting the superb new player experience.  My philosophy for the difficulties was that stalker is the base difficulty; the main difficulty if you will. I view voyager as stalker but, easier and interloper as being a barren world where the slow drain of the cold is the biggest threat. The most pure Long Dark experience you could say. No matter what the difficulty, you should have to play the core fantasy of being the haggard of Frau Holle's detrect and wrath. So, I made the late game a similar difficulty. Let's see what else. Oh yes some some clarification. Everything occurs on the day that it starts, but not on the day it ends. When wild life spawn chances change all of that animal are removed form every region except the one you in and then act as though you haven't visited that region yet. 

Original The long dark Late game fix Draft no.1.xlsx

A case against humanty Editable.xlsx

Pardon the barely readable screen shot.

The Late Game cycle. As you "can see" on day one hundred and ten the late game begins. From this point the game will cycle  between a standard period where the game continues as normal and an increasingly long Event period every. The event's are global changes that temporally force you to play differently. More difficult events have a lower chance of occurring and last for a shorter amount of time. Each time an event is rolled the chance of rolling it again decreases while the number of days it lasts for increases. For example: Stormy Weather could have a 10% chance of happening and last for 10-12 days. After it's rolled it would change to 15% (use quick sort to find the new values of the other items. I'm no mathematician though, so I might be miss remembering my time in that plutonian hall O, gregarious house) and last for 10-14 days. Then things would be normal for the rest of the "month", 20~30 days. Then at the end all the event's will play starting as far out as they can so, that they all end on the morning of the five hundredth day.

Some possible events are...                                                                                  Name; what it does. what it achieves. Early warning signs to ensure fairness. Possible up sides.

Long dark; Endless night. Forces you to get comfortable working at night. Doesn't need a warning sign.

Cold front; drops the global temperature by 20°. Invalidating even your double bear skin coats. Again I don't think it needs a warning sign.

Stormy weather; Causes nearly constant blizzards. This is the one big one that you need to be prepared for. There could be a massive murder of "weather crows" that fly over head. As an upside a ton of beach combing loot could wash up. Maybe even, to keep more active players from getting board most of the loot could wash away when the event ends.

Rabies; Some wolves will be hyper aggressive and have a chance to give you rabies, a new affliction that is a lethal version of Infection. Makes you scared of wolves again. Some of the wolves could die and when you try to harvest them instead of saying "wolf", it could say "tainted wolf" or something to that effect. There could also be a clearly visible indicator on the infected wolves, who would of course, all die after a few days, ending the event. 

Electro magnetic storm; Glimmer fog in the day, Arora in the night. Maybe even aroura blizzards! This would just be cool and an opportunity to reliably do some aurora stuff.

And hunts. Hunts are event's that can happen during the standard period where animals will show up to give you something to react to.

Both Wolves; A pack of wolves will hound you across multiple regions, bark when they get close. You should be able to keep a head of them if you keep moving but, you shouldn't be able to get comfortable with the pack on your tail. The goal is to recreate those time back in silent hunter where a pack of wolves would start barking and then run halfway across the map to get ya. Yes, I know that's the same feeling timber wolves are supposed to create, but they feel so, limited by the fact they aren't free rooming. As for warning signs I think the coolest one would be if the hunting pack was made up of wolves from around the region so, you could see them going of their normal patrol somewhere to meet up.

Bears; Similar to the wolves except they stick to the region they started hunting you in. Is it a chance for players who like to stay put to get some hide or a reason to pivot to doing something somewhere else? Both! There could be aloud roar when they start hunting.

Moose; A moose has decided your base is his new stomping grounds now! This version of the game encourages stock pilling a large amount of supplies in one place. And now we keep it! It's funnier if there's no warning.

The Old Bear; He's just a bear who's after you except instead of dying he will just run away. Maybe he could become a permeant feature of the region he spawns in, wandering around instead of hunting you. Either way he would act an ammo drain with no reward except being rid of him. I can see a lot of emergent story opportunities if he spawns in a region that isn't your main base, but is one you frequent. His warning could be a loud roar, distinct from the regular bears of course.                                       

Ghost Stage; you can kill him for deer bits or you can follow him to a supply a cache similar to the signal to void ones where you can't open it until the requirement has been fulfilled. In this case the stage bein' alive, or maybe to a location that you've never been to. Oh, hinterland could make it where the Ghost Stage can only appear if you have telemetry data turned on.

Rabbit; a single rabbit spawns next to you when you wake up next. Needs an extremely low chance of happening since if it happens more then ones per player it will just fill dumb.

Fish; The next bass you catch will be the Big Bass. Might tempt people into fishing. You will know you go this one when you don't get anything else.

Et al

"These mechanics would encourage players to stockpile everything one place". T'is a valid concern but, I think that that the fact you would need to stock pile supplies gives each moment more meaning.

"Waiting out a thirty day blizzard sounds really boring". As long as you know your going to make it through it it will be incredibly boring, which why varying the big storms length I so, important. This is a big problem though, players will inevitably become very comfortable and then they will be stuck just waiting it out. Something that would be a humorous non-answer would be to make the books readable. Have them be some of the books that the game makes allusions to: Call of The Wild, To Build a Fire and Paradise Lost are all public domain.

"I you put players on a timer they won't be able to do everything they want" listen doll if you don't want to make strategic decisions on how to spend your time, to always be weighing the risk vs reward of every possible action, I don't know how you get though life let alone why you play survival games.

The delta of randomness has been thrown out of balance. Some six heavy hammers on your way to the forge other times you’ve almost completed faithful cartographer by time you find one.

6 hours ago, hozz1235 said:

Please use spoiler tag.

You clicked on the thread. Also this pretty light on the spoilers. So, far he's only said stuff that the note that starts the tale tells you.

Now if he had told you that the

Then he might need a spoiler tag.

No, I haven’t found one I just wanted to know if it’s true that I need to start a new run.

3 hours ago, Serenity said:

You can even select the new maps when starting a game. Forsaken Airfield is pretty harsh, so it can pay off to be prepared. But on Pilgrim it will be fine.

I definitely recommend doing the journey though. It's quite a trip.

You can only spawn in the far territories once you've gone there by foot.

I think you need to take a break.

Assuming you own the the DLC, then all you have to do is follow the train tracks until you reach the broken bridge in broken railroad, then take the plank across the bridge and your there.

Yes the tales are available on old runs, but not on interloper. Also, where did you see that the bunkers won't spawn on old runs.

Why is play the tale not an option.

@JalosIt's probably to late but, here's the aces code. Jgrm0FGvpcw1mVRG6c4B . You can find it on this website Perilous Constraint - THE LONG DARK 

3 hours ago, deviro_verity said:

Is that boat in the last picture new? I can't recall ever seeing it. And which region was that screenshot taken from? I think its overlooking the waterfront cottages next to commuter's lament in CH.

yes, yes it is.

Wonder if they’ll add a slider for beach-combing loot to the custom settings?

Axe

Pros- double durability, so it losses 0.5% per hour of work. In struggles it would have a damage of 2% and a flee chance of 2%. This make noticeably better then the crowbar but, still a ways behind the heavy hammer. At least purely defensively. However at the end of the struggle it would have 50%~ percent chance to instantly kill the wolf. I think that the chance to insta-kill should be determined by fatigue. Minus one percent for every two missing percent of fatigue down to a minimum of a 25% chance to insta-kill. It would be able to puncture but, would have a long bleed out time.

Cons- Heavy. five too six kilograms.

Where to find- Farms, 30% of the time. Because it makes sense and I think that having some items with high cross region consistency in their spawns will help new players be less afraid of spawning in new regions.

The result- A item that's great for long term saves. It is also an item that new players are likely to think is better then it is while also being really good for them. It's good and rare enough that it is another item that new players can be excited to try and find on their next run. As a bonus it also teaches wait management in one clear lesson. It's to heavy to be part of your standard loadout. 

Fears- Players might not realize that your supposed to leave it behind causing them to struggle with their weight.

Interloper?- No; why would you be able to find an axe but not a hatchet.

Metal shard

Pros- Non, It's strictly worse then the hunting knife.

Cons- Weighs 0.75 kilograms, Harvests at a rate of 20min per kg, 40min per frozen kg, 60min per hide and 20per gut. It takes 1.5 times as long to craft, in struggles it will have a damage of 1.50% and a flee chance of 1.10%. Finally it would need to lose durability five or more times faster then the knife. Meaning that it losses 5% per hour of work.

Where to find- Instead of knifes anywhere it would make sense. The spawns could have a chance of being either a knife or shard. And of course the plane crash in Milton.

The result- It feels off when you reach that point in the game where you have six knifes. These would allow for knives to be rarer without forcing people to forge. 

Fears- The improvised knife already fills the role of an in between of hands and knife.

Interloper?- yes*; since the release of Tales From The Far Territories heavy hammers have been incredibly inconsistent. Some times you find six on your way to a forge; others you search half the map without finding one. These would make those times less painful. I do think that on interloper they would need to loss 10% per hour though in order to keep things balanced.

Fabricated Arrow

Pros- 10% higher critical hit chance. 1.5 times greater durability. weighs 0.10 kilograms

Cons- If there has to be one then 10% longer bleed time.

Where to find- Where regular arrows are now, depending on which one makes more sense. For example hunting binds have Fabricated arrows, but Katie's would have simple arrows. Again the spawns could have a chance of being either.

The result- Anti-moose arrows. Also, arrows would then have the distinction between the crafted ones and the ones found in the world that most other weapons have. Though fire hardened arrows will also do this. Just In the opposite way being a lower tier of crafted arrow and all.

Fears- To good against moose.

Interloper- No; they would make interloper easier.

Storm matches

Pros- Plus 20% fire start chance, lights fires 30% faster, water proof. (I'm going to pretend as though matches get wet along side your clothes when discussing match variants.)

cons- Weighs 0.02 kilograms. Only six matches per box.

Where to find- Wilderness regions, about every 10th box of matches in the regions there in.

The result- A rare item that is more exciting then individually finding matches and accelerant.

Fears- Has some over lap with fire strikers.

Interloper?- yes; people use torches anyway so, these are arguably worse then cardboard matches on interloper. 

Water proof matches

Pros- Water proof

Cons- Minus 10% to fire start chance.

Where to find- Anywhere, about every 6th box of matches. Rare enough that you will regularly find them but, they stay notable. Twelve matches per box.

The result- Matches that allow matches getting wet to exist more comfortably.

Interloper?- Maybe; On one hand they keep Interloper on the same relative difficulty. On the other hand matches getting wet and then not having a good answer would be a dynamic and fair way of adding more difficulty.

I've gone through and added up the results from this poll and two similar polls form the past. For the regions that didn't exist for any given poll I've used the number from this poll. Which reflects poorly since this poll has fewer votes then the other two. these are those polls  

Mystery Lake- 32, 10.666...

Coastal Highway- 24, 8

Pleasant Valley- 11, 3.666...

Desolation Point- 6, 2

Timber Wolf Mountain- 21, 7

Forlorn Muskeg- 10, 3.333...

Broken Railroad- 10, 3.333... 

Mountain Town- 5, 1.666...

Hushed River Valley- 8, 2.666...

Bleak Inlet-  3, 1

Ash Canyon- 18, 6

Black Rock- 6, 2

Transfer Pass- 3, 1

Forsaken Air Field- 12, 4

A few things to note are that Bleak Inlet is on par with a transition zone. In fact I think that If I had included The ravine it would be beating Bleak inlet.

Also, the fact that Mystery Lake is still the most popular raises the question. Is it this popular because of nostalgia or because it is core to the game? I'm sure Hinterland has some great data about how much time players have spent in each region, broken down by the number of hours each player has in game. That would give a much better picture then any amount of polling could.

I got all five of the variant items on day one.

You would think that after making a modding section on their forums they would allow more mods onto the steam workshop, but there are still only language mods. Does anybody no if that's just because no one has made any mods for the workshop or hinterland hasn't allowed them?

I realized I never actually stated what the game's theme is. It's moving on. Every thing else is an exploration of the theme. To quote the title song again "In the backwaters beyond fables and years. Is freedom in moving on."

@Karl Grylls I think that there is a lot to be talked about in regards to The Flame in the Flood, but in the middle of another topic isn't the place so, I've made a new topic here. 

Opening the game up again I defiantly see where your coming from Karl. In regards to crafting Interface. How ever I still think most players will be able to figure out what each materiel is for as most items have what you need for them in the name. Or at least it's a minor enough issue that it can be written off as intentional. It's happened to me plenty of times though that I have thought had every thing I need only to find out I had mistaken the icons. With those two issues stacked on top of each other say yes. The crafting interface did need another pass before the game released.

     "Spear trap is a good choice, but i remember not being able to craft them every time" If you use them on every wolf on every island you will run out. The resources are balanced so, that you have to pick and choose your battles. "you can't swim against the flow, even if it means that you are missing out on items."

     "I've seen a YouTuber not understanding this, getting frustrated, blaming the game for it and cancelling the Let's Play." I think the game does a good job communicating what it is in the first thirty minutes. The game says your going to die with the skeleton that is clearly another scout. The whole starting island looks like Lord of the Fly's girl's camp edition. It's an extremely oppressively atmosphere. Then when you get on the raft and head to wards the rising sun you're introduced to the river and the river tells you the rest. Even if you don't understand the motifs of the river the music will verbally tell you the themes. And, at least to me, a games mechanics should reflect it's theme's. Problem is that even you spell these things out the players still won't believe you.

      The survival genre is strange, yet certainty not unique in the fact that people think of it in completely different ways. For example if a somebody says a survival game isn't built around permanent death I can't think stop think of it as a survival game. Other people say that survival is an esthetic. These are people who say that The Last of US or Tale Tale's the Walking Dead are survival games. There are those who don't know that survival-craft is different than just survival. Who share a lot of similarities with survival games, but play completely differently. It's impossible to break things down into sufficiently small boxes. Well except for saying the game is it's self which is what it is. What I'm trying to say is that even if the game had some sort of page where it told you exactly what to expect before you bought it. No would believe it because we expect it to be filled with halve truths.

     Video games are one part technology, one part toy, and one part art. I'm not claiming that every apparent flaw in The Flame in the Flood is Molasses Flood being so, dedicated to the art that it becomes unpalatable to people expecting a game. The mail system is a clear example of a poorly integrated system that only exists as extended tutorial. I would bet it was the last thing they made. That's a big issue, but there are a lot of other issues. The island selection is quit thin, the crafting interface unpolished, there are only three distinct regions, the lack of branching paths, and I'm not even going to mention the host of small bugs. That's by no means an exhaustive list, but I think the game is conceptually strong in almost everyway. The river alone solve a ton of issues that survival games have. How to keep players moving/ taking risks, how to keep away the grind, how to give a sense progression and how to keep players in the sweet spot where they enough supplies to survive , but not enough to be comfortable. The long Dark "solves" these problems in a bunch of different ways to varying degrees of success with a bunch solutions. Years of carful and dare I say expert design. The Flame in the Flood did it all through concept. A river is such a genius way of controlling the player. It's so natural and potentially thematic. All though it's execution can be poor at times.  Then it double dips with it's freezing system in many of the same ways as The Long Dark, but in The Flame in the Flood cold is secondary. Where in The Long Dark it Fulfills the same role as the river.

     To Long did not read; The Flame in the Flood is conceptually brilliant game with mixed execution.

This a continuation of a conversation that start on the wrong sub forum. Here's the conversation so, far.

"Is Flame in the Flood playable? The mechanics are a bit annoying (shooting the bow) and the difficulty is also a bit too high. Three wolves in one area and no possibility to kill them, or just one of them is.... yeah. Ingredients for a poisoned decoy dropping way to less. Also the very bad overview of the recipies, you don't know what the items you're collecting are for unless you have all required materials. It has been some time since i played it last (March 2018), did they changed it to the better?" - Karl Grylls

"Dealing with wolves is expensive without tainted meat, but isn't hard to kill any number of them. It's just all in the preparation. The easiest way is to run to a safe zone (a fire or the start of the island (there's a small safe zone) and then place spear trap on the edge, then stand just behind the first one and place a second one. A wolf might charge you but, will be killed by the first trap. If one doesn't step forward into second tap. Repeat. As for the bow, using it is so, expensive that it's only viable when you have exorbitant amount of flint and even then it's only useful against snakes and when inside a safe zone. What I'm get at is that you really need to pick and choose your battles. If you do have tainted meat then you can massacre them by killing as many as you want with one piece of meat.

     When it comes to the crafting I didn't have issue you did even though they haven't updated the game since 2017. Maybe it's just the language you were playing in. I did have other issues with the U.I though. I found that many of the icons where hard to tell apart. More importantly the crafting sound effect over rides the music meaning that I would essential stop playing the game so, I could let the song finish. Similar to How in Wintermute I don't want to turn in quest because the song that's playing is better than the story.

     In The Flame in flood your being driven towards your death some times at break neck pace, until you can master the river. Until you learn to go with the flow. You need to do what you can were you can, but you can't fight the river. Both death and the River are more powerful then you. But you can negotiate. Change it your course just enough to see tomorrow. You must dance with them. At least that's what it's trying to do. It is defiantly a heavily flawed game. To quote the title song "There's a silence that may be heard loud and clear. In the simple, wild, and natural cadence"

      The game has it's issues. Lots of them, but that ending hits me right in the gut every time. Oh please let episode five of the game were supposed to talking about be amazing." -RegentRelics

      "I thought that the game is designed to be like that. But you are never sure whether the game is bad designed or if it's purpose. Have played it until 8/10 i think and stopped after that. You are right about the river and all the threats. You have to go with them, not against them to be successful. I've seen a YouTuber not understanding this, getting frustrated, blaming the game for it and cancelling the Let's Play. I play it on english btw, but it's still my opinion that the crafting journal needs an overhaul.

Spear trap is a good choice, but i remember not being able to craft them every time. I also think that the rudder is not necessary, with a bit of practice you can maneuver the river without it. You have to think ahead and must accept that you can't swim against the flow, even if it means that you are missing out on items." - Karl Gylls

2 hours ago, conanjaguar said:

 I think I’m more hyped for that than the next update to TLD .

10 hours ago, Karl Grylls said:

Is Flame in the Flood playable? The mechanics are a bit annoying (shooting the bow) and the difficulty is also a bit too high. Three wolves in one area and no possibility to kill them, or just one of them is.... yeah. Ingredients for a poisoned decoy dropping way to less. Also the very bad overview of the recipies, you don't know what the items you're collecting are for unless you have all required materials. It has been some time since i played it last (March 2018), did they changed it to the better?

Dealing with wolves is expensive without tainted meat, but isn't hard to kill any number of them. It's just all in the preparation. The easiest way is to run to a safe zone (a fire or the start of the island (there's a small safe zone) and then place spear trap on the edge, then stand just behind the first one and place a second one. A wolf might charge you but, will be killed by the first trap. If one doesn't step forward into second tap. Repeat. As for the bow, using it is so, expensive that it's only viable when you have exorbitant amount of flint and even then it's only useful against snakes and when inside a safe zone. What I'm get at is that you really need to pick and choose your battles. If you do have tainted meat then you can massacre them by killing as many as you want with one piece of meat.

     When it comes to the crafting I didn't have issue you did even though they haven't updated the game since 2017. Maybe it's just the language you were playing in. I did have other issues with the U.I though. I found that many of the icons where hard to tell apart. More importantly the crafting sound effect over rides the music meaning that I would essential stop playing the game so, I could let the song finish. Similar to How in Wintermute I don't want to turn in quest because the song that's playing is better than the story.

     In The Flame in flood your being driven towards your death some times at break neck pace, until you can master the river. Until you learn to go with the flow. You need to do what you can were you can, but you can't fight the river. Both death and the River are more powerful then you. But you can negotiate. Change it your course just enough to see tomorrow. You must dance with them. At least that's what it's trying to do. It is defiantly a heavily flawed game. To quote the title song "There's a silence that may be heard loud and clear. In the simple, wild, and natural cadence"

      The game has it's issues. Lots of them, but that ending hits me right in the gut every time. Oh please let episode five of the game were supposed to talking about be amazing.

2 hours ago, Leeanda said:

It's more something to do on tld I'm looking for though...  

- Play Escape The Dark Walker if you haven't already. If you have do it again spawning in a different region. 

- Do the Wintermute out doors challenge.

- Do a short run on each version of the game via the time capsule.

- Try to reach the poster card Location of each Region in thirty days or less.

- Want an atmospheric single player survival game with a similar level of intensity as voyager difficulty I would suggest The Flame in The Flood.