RegentRelic

I opened up The Long Dark and when I got told about this update I said to my self out loud. "Ump, time for bi-yearly disappointment". (Except for you perilous constraint, your perfect) Seems plans changed. Between acorns and fire hardened arrows I would expect the acorns to be moved, since they require oak tree's. Is Hinterland going to retro actively add them to older regions? will they just be in random parts of forests? Then again fire hardened arrows seem much more useful. Especially for players who want to play interloper, but don't know how to forge. Which wouldn't you know it the loot refresh made it were heavy hammers only exist some of the time and fire arms rarer in lower difficulties. They also Increased the number of bow spawns without changing the number of arrows. So, what they are hoping is that you'll die over and over again unable to find a ranged weapon. Then you'll look at the DLC and say "uhmm those those fire hardened arrows are exactly what I need" - the customer. I'd say it's clever but, everybody knows that key to sales is turning wants in to needs. More specifically power creep is classic way to force every player into buying your newest expansion. To be clear I'm not saying that the base game is going to be made worse in an attempt to sell the expansions. Even if the loot table refresh sometimes makes it seem that way. Nor am I worried that the power level of the DLC items will split the community. In fact power creep isn't even a good strategy since the Long Dark Players attracts players form the world/interacting half of Bartel's taxonomy. Where as power creep is most effective on the Acting/Players side of things. Should have called it Signal to Void, just to be extra confusing. /Laughing <------------- joke; don't ban me. /wink

Same.

If Hardened Survivor is analogous to Stalker then why is there no Interloper difficulty for Wintermute? The abundance of supplies along the critical path makes it so, that you only ever need to worry about wild life even with a rudimentary understanding of the game. And with that I've never once thought that I might run out of ammo when playing Wintermute. I understand that running out of supplies is a terrible way to die because it's unclear how far you need to go back, but if somebody chooses the hardest difficulty they are probably looking for a challenge. Now that Wintermute is a expansion and thus mainly being played by enfranchised players it's even worse not to have a hard mode. The other day I played through Witermute without going inside (defined as anywhere with a loading screen or fade to black. And I could go inside to grab quest items and talk to NPCs) Epsiode Two was at that the difficulty I think Harder Survivor should be at. This run did show another issue with a harder difficulty as well. That being that quests that have you gather a certain number of items will be disproportionately effected. Just scale the number of items needed. If your worried about players starting on this difficulty and then not having any fun because they have to keep restarting then hide it behind an achievement. Having to get either You'll be with her soon, Ready for when the SHFT, or Face the impossible. This way the players who the Hard mode is for are the only ones who can play it. Although now that Wintermute is a expansion I don't think this is an issue.

in TFTFT Map, Clothing, journal, and status keyboard short became unbound by default. I eventually realized I could just rebind them, but it was defiantly annoying.

"We don't have any new information to share on this at this time, but we will keep our community informed if there are any changes or updates in the future. Thank you for playing!" -Hinterland Except it will quote you for the sake of clarity.

For me, forsaken air field is the region I have been hoping for a long time. A massive open region with twists on each system that gears it towards experienced players.

Start in a region without a forge. Go to the forge. Only be full before you sleep. Win.

The ice caves and single fires are both unique to Hushed River Valley. And the ice caves at least are very cool. The thing that really sets It apart is what doesn't have though. It has no man made structures and thus is low on loot, much of the map lacks easily visible land marks and there's no work bench. No one is arguing that the region isn't distinctive. I'm arguing that most of it is tree's and cattails, where as Ash Canyon has something of note around every corner. I'm not attacking Hushed River Valley I'm defending Ash Canyon. In fact if I ranked the regions they would be right next to each other being number 7-8.

I was looking up the road map and came across this article from the future The Long Dark: Best Things Added By The Tales From The Far Territory Expansion (gamerant.com) Goes to show the integrity of games "journalists" when they can confidently report on something that doesn't exist. Ah yes, a ptarmigan! Mountain Town, Mountain Pass. How could you expect them to know the difference. They had a picture of the handheld shortwave. Instead they decided that Milton was a much better representation. I did a reverse image search and they've been using this image for random stuff for the last ten years.

While it's true that Ash Canyon is clearly derivative of Hushed River Valley, to say that it doesn't having thing that "defines it" is madness when it is the only region with the technical backpack. It's also, the region that hinterland started experimenting with some different types of one ways. An experiment that seems to have worked since I've never heard some complain about them and Hinterland has thrown a ton of them into TFTFT. As ManicManiac states there is a good handful of both visually and mechanically unique locations. It's Hushed River Valley that feels empty. There are what three or four points of interest. Most of the map looks the same and difficult figure out where you are. That doesn't mean Hushed River Valley is bad. It's supposed to be a mostly empty wilderness region. Ash canyon is similar in it's terrain, but is populated. Maybe that's what makes it less distinct, but I think the number of unique things going from the gold mine to the bitter marsh. Layered on top of difficult terrain makes it one of the best and distinctive regions.

Two and three would be great. Fire master is to dominate as is. Giving reasons to still carry tinder is a good way to hurt it (at least in the mind of the player), while still leaving it intact. Actually, I changed my mind. I think that tinder less fire starting should be changed to something you only do in an emergency, at least at level three. how this would be done is by lowering all base success chances by 20% and giving a 20% chance increase for having tinder. So, level one is the same. At level two you unlock the ability to start fires without tinder, but have a 10% penalty for doing so and fires take 50% longer to build. At level three fires build 10% faster, calculated after the penalty for not having tinder. And the penalty for starting a fire tinder less becomes only the time penalty. At level four fires without tinder take 25% longer to build and your base success chance becomes 65, that is 85 with tinder. At level the time penalty for starting a fire tinder less goes away. Thats hard to follow so here's what it would look like. 1. 20% chance to start fires. 2. 35% chance to start fires, fires last 10% longer, can start fires without tinder, 25% chance to start fires without tinder, Fires without tinder take 50% longer to build. 3. 45% chance to start fires, fires last 10% longer, fires start 10% faster, can start fires without tinder, fires without tinder take 50% longer to build. 4. 65% chance to start fires, fires last 25% longer, fires start 10% faster, can start fires without tinder, fires without tinder take 25% longer to build. 5. 80% chance to start fires, fires last 50% longer, fires start 50% faster, can start fires without tinder. These changes turn tinder from an afterthought that becomes nothing when you hit level three. To a layer of fire build just as engaging as fuel! Giving different types of fire starter different star chances is also a worthwhile angle. Such as giving birch bark a 25% chance, tempting you to use them and giving cattails a 15% chance because there boring.

These sort of Latter-Game environment changes are hopefully under the "safe house customization". A rope ladder made out of two climbing ropes that is less intensive to climb would really open the number of viable bases in some regions without impacting exploration too much. I think that moving planks has potential, but needs to be less convenient than it is in all the base building modes I've seen. Perhaps it worked like the survivors you carry in episode three. Slow enough that you won't bother with it when you're just passing through, and keeps them from being used regularly. Changing the way Will walks and having and an animation for picking them up would also lend a necessary weight to the action.

Island cabin most of the time. I store my crafting materials at the hanger because if I am going there, it is to craft. I actually go to the Final Approach to get rid of cabin fever so, I can hunt the nearby bear and moose. Thats pretty much my loop. Drift Island to pass the time, Final Approach to Hunt and get rid of cabin fever, the hanger to craft, go back to Final Approach to pick up the meat I left behind, and go back to the island.

You can do it your self. Download unity and make a hacked copy of The Long Dark. Then you just need to find the the file for the model your looking for, export it, covert it to something your 3-D print can take and your good to go. What ever you use to make models should be able to do the conversion. As for the other steps they aren’t particularly difficult and you should be able to figure them out with just a google search.

The current version of the game is the TFTFT part one update. Wether or not you own the dlc. The TFTFT sub forum refers to the DLC. So, unless the rest of the forums is for the Perilous Constraint version this is where it belongs.

The main thing I am hoping for is that with improved cooking comes a hit to the power of starvation.

My only complaint about them is those self-closing doors.

I’m mostly being dramatic. @hozz1235heres what I think of self so far.

Maybe a well-rested bonus for staying above half fatigue for a day or two, that increases your max fatigue as a way to make long trips easier, but I'm not sure that would be a good thing. I can't think of any okayish ideas for what keeping the two you mention high would do. I do think more could be done with the hypothermia system but there is nothing wrong with the current system.

In no particular order ... 1. Starvation being a non-issue Once you discover this "exploit" food is only as much of an issue as you make it. Hinterland has started to address the issue with the well-fed bonus, but that is primarily a way to carry more gear on lower difficulties. What we need is some real longer-term consequences for starving. Increasing the amount of damage that starvation deal is a terrible solution. Not only is it generally inelegant, but hits players who are just bad and starving because they can't find food just as much as the players who never intend on finding food. The first group is hit hard enough by not having well-feed and isn't the issue. The issue is interloper being reduced down to match finding the video game(sarcastically). To be clear I don't think starvation tactics should be removed. Just re-balanced. You could increase your fatigue drain by the amount of time you've spent starving recently. This would be realistic and mainly punish players who use starvation intentionally. It would make hibernation easier though. You could reduce your max fatigue the same way for a similar effect. The fact you can sleep as much as you want when your max fatigue is down makes intestinal parasites a desirable illness for people with no fear, so that might actually buff starvation. One thing I haven't seen suggested yet is to create a malnutrition affliction that is some combination of all of the above, that gets worse the more often you stave. In addition, it could have similar effect as insomnia (if it did anything.) waking you up every few hours, limiting your healing. The more often you starve the less effective sleep gets at healing. This doesn't hurt new players, but does make the game seem deeper and might get them thinking about why it's there. It doesn't make starvation useless, but makes it a tool in the toolbox rather than being the mechanic. It also plays into the long form nature of The Long Dark that is the reason I love the game. 2. Self closing doors My P.C and Xbox can handle the interiors being fully load. Can't there at least be an option to disable them with a warning that it might be demanding on processing power. Ideally the game would detect how many resources are available and decide to close the door or not. It's creepy, annoying and weirder when older buildings don't have automatically closing doors. I'm sure there's some super specific technical reason behind the self-closing doors, but I can't think of a reason some structures have them but, others don't. 3. Too much ammo Ever since the update I have found more ammo than before. Maybe I've just been lucky, but making such large amounts of ammo makes wildlife less of an issue and causes you to ignore the other, more interesting, options for handling wolves. It also makes you get into the late game faster (which is bad, because the late game is as exciting as sitting on the porch (Believe me I'm a sitting on the porch enthusiast but, it's just better in real life.)) and makes the jump from stalker to interloper much harder for new players. Which might be intentional. 4. Map feeling too big. Let me explain I've introduced a handful of people to The Long Dark and have discussed the new player experience with many people both on these here forms and in person and there are a few things that keep players from getting into the game. Not liking Wintermute. some people hear the Intro music expect a great story or see the games description and expect a good Jack London. Instead, they get Wintermute. Not choosing the right difficulty. Some people play to hard of a difficulty and think the game is too hard. Some people play to low of a difficulty and think it's too easy. No tutorial. Some players have a hard time figuring the menus and such. the actual game play is intuitive, but the menu and short cuts can be extremely obtuse. The solution is to play Wintermute, but then they run into the first problem. The game should have a pop on the first run that tells you have to open the inventory. Nothing less, little more. Those issues don't have solutions. or at least not very complete ones. There are three problems though that Hinterland already had the solution to before they even had the problem. Choosing the wrong region. Some players don't read the little blurb about each region before they start. Which causes them to repeatedly spawn in beginner hostile parts of the map and thinking eh game is too difficult. Making it so, on your fist few runs the continue button doesn't show up for a few seconds would help. I will talk about a much better solution in a minute though. Being intimidated by the map size. Especially for mastery players that map screen brings up the question. Do I really want to spend my time on this game? Do I really want to learn all this? The effect gets worse after dying afew times, often in rapid succession. After a few runs you get an idea how big each region and how slow travel is, and the map screen only seems bigger. I'm sure a significant number of players quit before finding out how the map and key locations fit together. No goals. To examine who plays The Long Dark I'm going use Bartel's taxonomy even though he states very clearly in his book that it's not supposed to be used outside of MMO's. Killers don't play the game. There's no one to beat. The game has the interacting part for socializers fueled by the constant updates, but is inherently un-social. That leaves Achievers and Explores. Achievers really love the games harder achievements and challenges, but don't care that much about the "high score" chasing that is your main goal (at least at first). Meaning that achievers do have things to do but, aren't motivated early enough by the main game mode. The game is really meant for Explores which is why the reasons Achievers stay is because they become Explorers to complete their goals. Adding more hard challenges and Wintermute has helped alleviate the problem but, survival only has three achievements' that that cause you to explore, and Faithful Cartographer is way too big of a task for new players (I'm sure somebody is going to say something like " I set out to get Faithful Cartographer as soon as I got the game and I loved it." to which I say, the fact that you're on these forms shows your amongst the most hardcore players and don't represent the average players experience.) Plus, achievements are extrinsic rewards and don't work for players who are intrinsically motivated. Like me. This whole a paragraph isn't a small issue though. Which is why the hiding regions until they have been visited was Brillant. It allowed hinterland to control how people are introduced to Survival Mode. It kept the map from being over whelming and said "hey, there's more out there and it's all connected so, go see what you can see." and then punches you in the gut with the survival mechanics. There could be achievement for finding your first new region, which would condition the player to think that this is what they are supposed to do and leads straight to the other achievements. It would make the world seem like a vast wilderness without seeming like you should already have some knowledge of each region and prevents choice paralyses. If you die after unlocking a new region you naturally want to try starting that in that region and playing with that cool new unlock. The game already does a good job obscuring it's borders, but imagine entering a random cave and coming out in a whole new region. It makes the map overbearing closer to the way that the wilderlands are rather than overbearing in the way this wall of text is. Most importantly if player think find each region is the goal, then it will help sell more DLC regions. Of course, no solution is perfect. Players might get frustrated if they can't find a new region after a while. To help that, you could have an outline of the regions connected to the regions you've already discovered appear on the map, so players are never clueless and have hint's (like the ones that already in the game.) to help guide them along. It might frustrate people who were really excited to see the new region. I think that this isn't a very big issue in the long run. Considering each new region is less and less significant and that anyone who feels like they need a new region is already a big fan of the game as a whole. Players might think the game is over once they have found every region. That might take less time, but they will have had more fun than waiting at mystery lake for 500 days. Which will won't want them to go back to their favorite places and play the game more. It will also drive people towards the DLC regions as away to continue the best part of the game. There is no reason to buy TFTFT if you're just trying to survive. Over centralizing around Myster Lake. The games need to survive naturally pushes people towards exploring. Again, it gives Hinterland at least some idea of how experienced player will be when they Discover each region. 5. Boring Late-game. I'm defining the mid-game as when you have everything you ""need to survive (Hatchet, knife, bedroll, etc) and the Late-game as when you have everything you want. The solution is to make the line between the mid and late game blurrier with more things to get. And dread. Hinterland is trying to extend the mid-game with unique items and base customization which definitely is at least half of the solution. At least meaning, if not more. However, I haven't heard hinterland mention the other side of the coin. Things that happen later in the in the game you need to be preparing for. The Long Dark was never meant has a game that you lived forever. Which why wildlife getting rarer and the world getting colder are mechanics. Only problem is that both of these are barely noticeable. I wish the game really hit you after a few weeks. Semi permeant things like the over hunting mechanic getting doubled, tripled, turned up to eleven. A whiteout blizzard that came between day ninety and one hundred that lasted for a month. Wolves going on the hunt like in Silent Hunter. Radioactive snow causes cancer if you drink water made from it, I don't know. Just something to prepare for, some late game challenge temporary or Permanente to overcome and push instead of letting you settle to early. Ala the cold in The Flame in The Flood or first year's seasons in Don't Starve. Some players might not like being timed. Again, some of these are in the game they just aren't noticeable. The more world event style ones could be temporary, and you just have to be ready to wait them out and then you can get back to your exploring. If all else fails, this is a good thing to be a custom option. It would blind side new players. When me and my cousin first played The Long Dark the big blizzards after a certain point was something we thought was already in the game only to be disappointed when the weather barely changed. What I am saying is that the Long Dark isn't afraid to throw a wrench at face and presents itself in a way that tells you to expect the worst. What's the tag line again? oh yay, "Only you, the cold, and all the threats Mother Nature can muster." 6. Predictable wildlife. Spawns, movements, interactions, everything. Once you have learned how to get through an area safely you get through it safely almost every time. it discourages experimentation and makes situations that should be intense entirely mundane. Hinterland has mentioned that they are working on a "Wildlife refresh". Which I hope does more than just change the spawns. I hope gives wolves larger and more varied patrol routes and make walking away at a brisk pace less of effective. If not the update will relieve the symptoms, but isn't a cure. I know hinterland is aware of these problems and more. As well has already thought of my solutions. I just wanted to give my thoughts on some of the older and stranger issues. As well as address the issues in some of the proposed fixes. Industry wisdom says that players are great at knowing how they feal, but terrible at knowing why they feel this way; and even worse at coming up with solutions. I can't help myself from think I have the right ideas though. There are parts of these problems I missed, solutions I miss, and problems with my solutions I missed. So, do tell O' men of great bear what where I am mistaken.

The only button that opens the inventory is I. Usually I would press C to go straight to the clothing tab after picking a piece up, but it ain’t working.

I wish hinterland would over lay the old loot with new loot so, that there would be more variety. It would be a complete web of tables but, it would be well worth it in the long run. Also you should remember that some of the loot has been moved to the new memento caches. Especially the good stuff.

I wish hinterland made it clear on the steam page what features we’re currently in the expansion. I feel bad for the people on steam who didn’t realize they were buying a promise.

You must doin’ some lsd or something to call the game being broken on launch and mixed reviews on steam a great start. That’s coming from someone who Forsaken Air field is one of their favorite regions. Actually it is my favorite. I don’t know it it’s tight.

I spawned at mystery lake just over the hill with the weapons bunker (didn't spawn) and I think the spawn refresh is nice even though in this case I knew exactly where I was pretty much immediately. I might have just been unlucky, but it seems that there is significantly less loot at the camp office now. I wasn't going to head up that way since I want to get to the new regions, but after finding the note for the Carter memento cache I decided I better find how much is in those things. It might have been because I was choosing to ignore them, but it seemed like there were fewer cattails then before. A good change if so. I start to feel like there was just less loot in general, that they must have moved a decent amount to these new memento caches when suddenly. I thought they had changed the loot so, that a ton of the loot spawns one of a couple spots in each region. I ended up going with The Curator's rifle because Bucks rifle didn't sound useful, and I wasn't worried about weight. Also, that isn't a giant newspaper it's just floating. I found about the same amount of stuff as usual in the dame just no hatchet. until found the Memento cache which had a revolver and ten bullets! I head on over to do trappers cabin to get a bear coat and log off for the night. The next day I found out that all of the item variants weren't supposed to be in that trailer so, I decided to dump them in the cabin at them behind Trappers Cabin where they will never be seen again. I was worried that Maxe's Iconic hatchet would be missing, but was relived to find a bow there instead I think it would be cool if there were a bunch possible high value tools that could spawn there. I'm sure I'll check again someday. I like the new doe's there seems to be more ammunition so, it does hurt as bad that they are less individually valuable. The main thing that they do is make me acutely want to hunt the bucks. The number of time that I saw a buck and was tempted to hunt it instead of just ignore it was two or three. That's not a lot, but that's how many times I saw bucks. The does make were if you want to get the must deer for your buck you really got to hunt around a bit since the ones nearby might all be does. With four days left before my Bear pelt cured, I contracted intestinal parasites. A four percent chance and I got it. To make things worse I didn't have enough antibiotics to recover since I refuse to carry more than one bottle (because they weigh so, much) and hadn't stopped to gather any Reishis. I could have scrounged up some Reshies from the clear cut and I knew I left a bottle at mystery lake, Intestinal parasites doesn't become an issue until six or seven days into it so, I decided I can make it to the maintenance yard to wait of the rest of my time. As I was leaving the moose showed up, I was too excited to wait any longer. I accidentally left my bed roll at Trappers Cabin but, luckily there was still one at the Poachers Camp. I found the memento cache in the cave next to the destroyed cabin in broken railroad and found a mackinaw jacket. So, from the two that I have looted it seems that Memento caches are good places to find low amounts of high-quality loot. A way for it to feel like your finding good loot more often without actually upsetting balance, as well as give new players a series of things to head to. There a nice bit of game design that accomplishes multiple things once. Good job Hinterland. There's also these new notes that point reveal important locations. For example, I found one that points to the cave that leads to Milton from Mystery Lake. I hope this means Hinterland Is preparing to make it where you have to discover regions before you can spawn in them. Only problem is that it looks like this on the map. I Hope that is bugged text. I guess that now would be the time mention some other bugs. I found alot more floatin' objects then before and I kept opening containers and then being able to walk away. It would play the searching noise the container would be ajar for a few seconds then whatever was in it would pop like normal when I was half way across the room. Review: All of the new stuff seems to be a straight improvement over Perilous Constraint. The loot refresh mixes things up but, doesn't change the way you play. (I Haven't done an interloper run yet.) The item variants seem like an easy way to add unique items to more regions (which is good. Adds more flavor and reasons to explore.). If this was a regular update it adds enough to not be sad like the spray can update was. But, that lack of a new region would have to make it on the lamer end of updates. Luckily for it the free update isn't the main attraction. The new regions are and what new regions they are. I'll post my review of The Far Territories it's self on that sub-form. Oh, one more thing I found way more ammo than before. I'm talking some thirty rounds, forty bullets and five arrows. This is episode three levels of ammo, and it is my only grip with the update. Bugs not with standing.