manolitode

On 11/25/2020 at 5:26 PM, Skuopbahdwoop said:

Having a simple HUD icon kind of like the sprain risk, that activates around the time someone should hear the wolf barking, is probably the best option; since if the icon appeared just whenever there was danger of a wolf attack, that would give people an unfair advantage in the game, and I'm not really about that. 

So if a wolf growl (and I suppose if a bear yelp or a moose snort) you get a visual cue that provides only the information that there has been a sound effect from hostile wildlife but no clue as to its position. How do you think this would change the way you play the game? Would it become easier and would you be less attentive to sound? Again I think it's a very neat idea for accessibility reasons. I probably wouldn't use it myself (if it was optional) since listening for potential dangers is such a significant part of the experience. Though I'm curious what such a cue would look like if it was to translate the slight stress response you get from a wolf bark into something visual. 

2 hours ago, gotmilkanot said:

The number of matches seems alittle bit off for me, though. I've discovered 99% of the world in my current Interloper run, and only found about 100+ matches - including the 9 matches I've used so far.

I know these numbers can vary across different saves but I don't think there are ~300 matches on Interloper. Could be that I've missed out some boxes but I highly doubt it can even exceed 200.

I'd agree that 300 seems like a lot relative to 100. If you usually end up around 100 matches I'm curious whether you break stuff down and scan indoor locations with a light source? Let's zoom out for a moment and get statistical, I promise I won't overdo it but I seem to be in the mood for data compilation 😉 27 matchboxes over 10 main regions equals 2.7 matchboxes per main region for this particular playthrough. The guaranteed matchbox spawns in PV farmstead basement, TWM hut, summit (2) and open cave, HRV cave, spence's and Hibernia alone gives us 8 matchboxes. 8 is of course nowhere near 27. But we have yet to explore 94% of indoor locations, all transition regions, most outdoor locations including all outdoor caves but one, all drawers, closets and all boxes but the one in the open TWM cave. Just to paint a broader picture. Still, as you suggest I might have been lucky and ended up on the high end of a match availability scale on this particular playthrough. If such a scale exists. 

15 hours ago, peteloud said:

Surely this depends upon the level at which you are playing, i.e. there are fewer in a Stalker game than a Voyager game.

It seems like a reasonable assumption. At the top of the custom menu you'll see how resource availability changes with difficulty. I'm not sure wheter there's a fixed ratio and whether there is a difference for all items. If you compare interloper and stalker for instance, in the latter there is an extra flare shell loot location and plenty more clothing, which means your access to cloth is greatly enhanced. I'm less convinced that there is a huge difference in maple sapling access between the two difficulties.

On 11/24/2020 at 9:47 AM, Forrest said:

Owl , squirrel and others . 

It will be interesting and it will make game alive 

New animals is a recurrent idea as mentioned above. Surely this is an indication of some level of support for the idea. Owls haven't been suggested too often, it seems to me like a nice idea to introduce a bird with more meat on them than the crow. I'm not sure that realism is a big issue here, if we can have wolves with green glowing aurora eyes, owls that stay in winter aren't out of the question 😊 Perturbing the balance of the echosystem seem like the main issue, introducing one new animal means big time ripples on the water for how the game is played. 

2 hours ago, Willbonney said:

Snowy Owls are tundra animals.  They prefer little to no tree cover, with shrubs, moss, and lichen.  They are also on the endangered species list, and to add them to a video game in a form where they could be hunted, that would be a bad idea.  Bad PR and I'm sure an animal rights group would get on Hinterland's case.

Aren't they mostly about protecting real life animals and not pixel ones? I could be wrong but I don't recall Human Rights Watch getting on EA Games case for being able to throw incendiary grenades in Battlefield. 

I’ve always been curious – how many cattails are out there in The Long Dark?

So I decided to pick them up and count them. And while I was at it, why not count some other items as well. I figured the results might be interesting to share so here’s an extensive list below. It contains quite a few but not all non-respawning items. I attemped to be extremely thorough and explore every corner of Great Bear. But still, you'll miss a few items along the way. I usually find an undiscovered sapling or random green backpack in every new playthrough. An estimate would be that the compilation below contains around 95% of non-renewables for this particular playthrough. Anyway, hopefully you get some idea of the amount of items to expect in interloper, meaning resources are set to low. Spoilers below.

Cattails

Cattails: 1314 (equalling 197 100 calories)

When I asked Hinterland how many cattails I had missed, this is what they replied: Cat tails have a random spawn which changes with each new game. Because of these factors, we’re unable to give you an accurate count of how many cat tails spawn in any given session.

In other words, take this and other numbers with a grain of salt. 

Saplings

Birch saplings: 123 (equalling 369 arrows, I'm curious whether the total number can always be evenly divided by 3)

Maple saplings: 60

Tools

Can openers: 6

Cooking pots: 17

Flare shells: 12 (fixed number in interloper)

Hacksaws: 8

Hammers: 4

Marine flares: 11

Prybars: 11

Recyclable cans: 46

Simple tools: 8

Skillbooks: 46 (Gunsmithing seem to be in high demand among great bear inhabitans)

Spray cans: 30 (almost ended up spraying something once...)

Storm lanterns: 5

Whetstones: 9

Stuff that lights up the long dark

Firelogs: 3

Firestrikers: 3

Magnifying glasses: 3

Matchboxes: 27

Food and drinks (of which most were already spoiled)

Beef jerky: 17

Chocolate bar: 22

Coffee: 38

Dog food: 10

Granola bar: 19

Herbal tea: 32

Ketchup chips: 6 (but no syrup in this playthrough, started the playthrough before that update but still found chips)

Peaches: 12

Pork & Beans: 13

Tin of sardines: 47 (all but a few from the Cannery crates)

Tomato soup: 12

Salty crackers: 13

Summit soda: 13

Medicaments

Antibiotics: 24

Emergency Stims: 8

Old man’s beard lichen: 725 (equalling 241 bandages)

Reishi mushrooms: 751 (375 prepared mushrooms)

Rosehips: 3475 (144 batches of rose hip tea)

Water purification tablets: 8

Miscellanous

Cloth: 968

The cloth number is an exception since it is intentionally incomplete. It includes all broken down curtains, towels, clothing (including the cloth-worth on Will's body) and finding random single pieces of cloth. It doesn’t include most furniture.

Leather: 61

Includes single pieces of leather and breakables like shoes and driving/work gloves.

Perfect revolver ammo: 3 (although they wouldn’t stick to the bowstring)

Other

While I decided to chop up every crate on the island, as noted I spared some furniture with cloth. Some might call that laziness, I call it sanity 😄 It means of course that possible unlooted items remain, eg behind our much beloved turquoise armchairs. Some items were excluded from the list, like sewing kits (27), painkillers (32) and quality tools (3). For some reason I started to count them late. As for the red flares, I prefer blue.

There were no beachcombing.

Hope you enjoyed!

So you've learned about electrocution and I bet my rabbit hat you won't make that mistake again. But that's TLD. There are a million mistakes to make so you progress and die over and over again. I lost a 300 day interloper game cause I decided to explore the semi-new mine in Coastal Highway. I stepped into a plash that was secretly electrical so that was that, damn there wasn't even an arurora. Feel disgruntled if you want to but get over it and start a new playthrough where you beat your former self. Better luck skills next time  

1 hour ago, Skuopbahdwoop said:

I thought about this when I got surprised attacked by my 5th wolf of the day. Could there be a visual HUD indicator when a wolf/other dangerous animal makes a noise threateningly at you but it's not within your eyesight? I've messed around with volume variables but it can be difficult at times to focus/triangulate a wolf bark before I get knocked out. It could be something even just turned on or off like camera movement in the accessibility options. It wouldn't need to be overpowered, either- just a visual hud on the screen that something dangerous is around you so you have to find it, like when you're on a steep incline and it warns you you're at risk for spraining; or the weak ice warning. 

I'm a little unsure what you suggest so bare with me ☺️ Are you mainly concerned with accessibility, difficulty or both? 

If you suggest a visual cue for howls and growls: hopefully it will be introduced in the closed captions subtitles with future updates, as an option for those with impaired hearing. As for triangulation, panned sound and growl volume changes with changed distance would be a nice addition, but as they are now they're no good for triangulation.  

If you suggest that the HUD indicate hostile wildlife near you, even though they don't stalk you, it's more a matter of difficulty. Since wolves are our minor boss fights they should be demanding in my opinion. If we keep cutting corners a wolf or something nastier will jump us eventually, a warning would make that and other scenarios too easy. Also, I really like how the HUD is thoughtfully minimalistic and subtle. It's almost like you're wandering through a painting. 

All my earned feats disappeared with the darkwalker update on PS4. Blizzard walker and cold fusion remained for a few weeks (likely because of active playthroughs) but disappeared today and won't come back. I wonder if this is a known issue? It took 7 months to earn blizzard walker and these things shouldn't happen. Some people would surely give up a game, no matter how much they enjoy it, because of random lost months and years of progress. Guess it's a good thing that I don't mind a challenge 😉

On 11/16/2020 at 10:07 PM, GeorgePotter said:

I get plenty of spawns in Desolation Point, in Forlorn Muskeg, in Hushed River, in Pleasant Valley and in Timberwolf Mountain but not once have I spawned in Bleak Inlet. Is this a deliberate thing with the game? Is Bleak Inlet not a region it's possible to spawn in on Interloper? Or am I just being insanely unlucky with RNG?

Correct, you won't spawn in Bleak Inlet on interloper difficulty. The regions you mention above are the only possible starting regions in my experience. Meaning easier maps like Mystery Lake, Mountain Town, Broken Railroad and Coastal Highway (and the transition regions) aren't starting regions. If this decision was based on map difficulty I would think DP fit better with the "easy" group and BI as a starting region on interloper. But there might be a number of other reasons for HL:s decision. 

On 11/15/2020 at 5:46 PM, TiffTastic said:

I use the rock caches a ton in the game. I don’t trust most transition zone containers. But I’m also really bad about getting bored and wandering to a new game, and forgetting about the old. So I haven’t really experienced things vanishing like that. It may have happened, but my ADHD I guess precludes my experiencing it😁

Indeed, the lucky unbeknown 😊 though I must admit the shame, I also die occasionaly (dying of bordedom is not a valid excuse anyway). Makes it hard to see the long-term effect of updates. Anyway, I think you're in good company. Somebody on this forum, sorry I forgot who it was, suggested staying in the same region for 100 days at a time as a personal challenge. I thought that would solve the boredom in progressing through the regions too quickly so I tried it but limited the amount of days to 50. It was quite fun to be honest! But it took 42 days to get a jacket in PV, the starting region. Though I had a ski jacket for almost a day (I love ghost bears) the second jacket was the bear coat. A bit ironic that the bear that ripped the jacket became one himself. Circle of life. So if all goes well, perhaps I'll come back and report the effects of the upcoming updates...

Bit of a sidetrack perhaps but speaking of feats, did someone else also lose their earned feats with the Darkwalker update? I started a new survival game recently and all feat progress was gone and reset except the two I used in the only playthrough that was active when downloading Darkwalker. Will report the bug, just curious whether anyone else experienced this.  

1 hour ago, odium said:

isnt it generally the indoor locations that are affected?  you could pile up a ton of stuff in a nearby cave i would think 

That's a very good point and it makes stone caches a decent solution in theory. I think it's far to say it's way safer to store loot in a cache outside Cinder Hills than inside it. Since Cinder Hills obviously hasn't caved in in survival mode as it has in story, it is at "risk" of changes with the next episode. 

Caves in general may be less safe than one would think. Someone reported losing a huge stack of improvised knives and hatches from the FM cave once it was updated to constitute a transition point to Bleak Inlet. 

17 hours ago, Screenshot Pilgrim said:

I've got 16 skill books so far on Voyager.  That's just from PV, CH, OIC, and DP.  Although, I haven't looked everywhere in PV yet.  Need to sweep across the northern part on my way up to Timberwolf Mt. 

So far, the totals for each difficulty are unknown (at least to me), but thanks for sharing your interloper finds.  Do you think you've got most or all of em from the entire island?

Yes 46 should be all of them as I looted just about everything on this playthrough, but you never know. Though I wonder whether there's a fixed number of skill books even within one given difficulty. 

Okay, so 16 skill books on voyager, lets make a highly unscientific estimate ☺️ We have 10 main regions and 3 transition regions, lets call that 11.5 maps in total for our calculation. You looted CH and DP, that's 2 points, circa 0.75% of PV equalling 0.75 points, and I'm a bit lost as of the abbreviation OIC but we'll go with 0.5 for now. That means you looted 28% of the world and found 16 books. This gives us a very rough estimate of 57 skill books in all of Great Bear on voyager (more likely within the range of 45-71). The estimate is what it is but it seems that easier difficulties may have more skill books and thereby be affected by the resource setting in custom.

20 hours ago, Screenshot Pilgrim said:

I've got this library thing going at the Farmhouse in PV, and hoping it doesn't get derailed with Dec update.  In fact, looking forward to adding any books from Ash Canyon when the time comes.  I haven't had any trouble with losing gear in previous updates, but that sounds like famous last words...

Hehe it does sound like it 😉 I've been lucky so far as well. Suppose trying to minimize the risk is better than doing nothing, even though it's just guessing about upcoming updates. 

Out of curiousity, how many skill books have you found so far and on what difficulty? I collected 46 on a current loper, I’m unsure whether it varies between difficulties.

2 hours ago, Danielviomusic said:

If you're an experienced player, I would encourage you to settle down in Bleak Inlet. It is such a gorgeus zone and it has challenges up for a experienced player, so why not? Most of the other locations are obvious!

To be honest I wish there were no campaign mode and the whole team was totally invested in upgrading survival mode and adding new areas. We've come such a long way since release, and there's still SO much potential for this game and its amazing survival mechanics. That's just my opinion though.

That's a nice idea, I like Bleak Inlet in late game for a variety of reasons. It also seems plausible that it wouldn't be too affected by the upcoming story mode updates. The downside is that BI is quite far away from everything and I'm not up to transporting the Cinder Hills mine storage down the rope in BI. In that case I would just as well bring all of it to the dam. I'm curious whether you and others are considering the potential risk of losing their well-earned gear with future updates when planning endgame storage?  

As for story mode, I too play for survival but very much look forward to play as Will again and see how the story unfolds 😀

Once more Great bear is empty of stuff to loot and its time to settle down again. I'm having doubts about where to store the goods this time because of the upcoming episode 4 (please express complaints of the waiting time elsewhere 😊). I have some loot in Coastal Highway and there is likely to be a major update when we get episode 4 or 5 and I'll wait for that before I finally move all my stuff there because I still enjoy CH endgame. While we have the Lost and found boxes there have been previous reports of stashes of loot going lost forever with updates. I want to avoid that and am curious where you would find it advisable to stash the loot?

I currently keep most of the loot in Mystery Lake dam and some in Cinder hills coal mine. I doubt that there will be any major updates to Mystery Lake. Coastal Highway seems more plausible to change. So currently the plan is to create some rock caches outside Cinder hills in Pleasant Valley, as that region should be unaffected by the next episodes' revision. 

Any thoughts?

7 hours ago, software.dog said:

There were so many missed opportunities to flesh out the other survivors, like the straggler survivors we carry back to Thompson's Crossing in Ep3. Those people were all incredibly vulnerable and I was so interested in their stories, I was crushed that they were just faceless nobodies with shared voiceover lines when I spent many in-game hours with them saving their lives. 

Couldn't agree more! I would have liked it if one of the recovering survivors had personality, talked to us, perhaps gave us an unexpected clue on the aurora mystery. Or at least, the survivor camp in church could have been more like what we see in apocalypse movies. People gathering, slowly recovering and creating new bonds and group constellations before they face the unknown disaster. Instead we got silence and coughing. I guess I was just hoping for something more after the great quality of episode 1 and 2.

Using coal improved my life by alot. It keeps you very warm for very long and helps you explore Great bear and survive a blustering snowstorm by lighting up a neat coalbased fire behind a rock. Coal is much lighter than wood and it's less work to pick up 1 coal than 11 sticks. I only refrain from picking up a piece of coal if I'm in a coal mine and already carry more than my grunting survivor can bear. Coal is necessary to use the forge where you can create your improvised tools, you'll need at least 6 by the way. You can also drop the coal on the ground to form the letters S O S, but that might not help anything but lift your spirits.  

Welcome to the forums @software.dog 

You make a good point about seeing a friendly face every now and then. I'm thinking that if you like how storymode is structured, there's always the possibility to drag out the story and keep playing survivalish within limited region(s). Cause the way I see it NPCs are one of the main variables that distinguishes survival from storymode. You're on your own in survival and if NPCs were introduced it wouldn't really be survival anymore. There are plenty of decent games out there that rely heavily on NPC interaction, and that handles it very well. I like that we create our own quests, our own goals, in survival. Also, if the NPCs in episode 3 is the best character writing we get, I would almost pay money not to see anything like it again, whatever gamemode. And I get that this is highly subjective, some like yourself truly enjoy storymode and some like me prefer survival, and I'm happy that we're provided both options. That said, I hope we get to meet Jeremiah again in episode 4 or 5

Yes, this sometimes happens with cured saplings and cured hides (mostly deer I think). I don't recall experiencing this with other storages than the greenish lockers, and never if the item wasn't actually in storage. I think it's a good idea to create a ticket with the screenshot above. 

On 10/26/2020 at 3:18 AM, NotQuiteBearGrylls said:

2) What's your short, medium, and long term goals/ destination for you and the loot you chose to take?   

Like you I usually carry most goods over to Cinder Hills. If you're working on mastering your current difficulty, I'd suggest moving a lot of stuff from one region to another could wait. It takes a lot of time and you might wind up dead 5 or 20 days later without using any of the heavy goods you spent so much time transporting. If you feel prepared for endgame you can reduce your trips to a minimum by carefully choosing what to carry away. For example, do you really need 8 simple tools in late game when you can just repair the quality ones with your endless (almost) supply of scrap metal? And is it useful to carry 10 wolf pelts from TWM to CH? etc

This is not a technical issue but I want to acknowledge a much welcome improvement in the latest patch, namely the smooth way the game saves now. I didn't think it was a big issue to have to wait while the game saves after sleeping, waiting or entering an indoor location. Still, now that we can move around while the game saves, it feels like a major improvement. Well done Hinterland 👍

On 10/31/2020 at 10:40 PM, Quetza said:

Adding more difficulty in sucessfully hit targets, with the only available weapon, will have an effect on : arrows, bow, fuel, matches, and beverages consumption. And of course the grindiness of the game (and archery level).

I think that's quite alright to be honest. Interlopers vary a lot in how they play and how they consume the items you mention. But personally, after exploring great bear and settling down, I find there is an abundance of saplings, reclaimed wood, matches and many other non-renewable consumables. On my current run, some 250 days in with 65% explored I have 48 maple saplings in stock and around 150 prepared reishi mushrooms. Also, there is the endless supply of birch bark and sticks out there. These are reasons why I don't see a major issue in the wobbly bow mechanic. Also, if the cold gets too problematic, for you there is always the option to linger in a warmer region such as Mystery Lake. Will this implementation change how lopers play the game? For sure. Will it be harder? For sure. However it seems that with some wobbling experience it becomes perfectly doable to bring down a charging wolf with a flickering arrow.

12 hours ago, Looper said:

If anything the game really needs lategame purpose and challenges - not more utilities.

I completely agree that this is a welcome challenge. Considering the amount of resources in TLD we are prepared for it. That said, it also makes the already hard transition from stalker to interloper difficulty even rougher. If you're still struggling with interloper it is perfectly understandable to oppose this implementation.   

31 minutes ago, oplli said:

If you know that you idea isn't going to happend in the game why posting it?

What content qualifies in this forum section according to your standards then? If someone wants to try out a suggestion (he even calls it "a bit of a twist") I say go for it.  

43 minutes ago, oplli said:

and the wishlist isnt just to give ideas it is to discuss about ideas and finding if it is agreat idea or not.

By responding and dicussing to an idea you may come to a conclusion that works on paper. But you can't foresee all the consequences that one modification in a game will bring to the whole ecosystem. Or what unanticipated strategies they may evoke. You'd have to implement an idea in order to evaluate it. And even then, you wouldn't be able to say that an implementation was a good idea. Because you, me and everyone else play differently. Even if the majority agree that something is great, that doesn't mean it is. You won't find out what's great and what's not. What you may find is opportunities to enhance someone's idea. Or axe it. Your choice.

Sleeping bears can be pretty nasty. I was crossing the bridge in Mountain Town one day, when I saw a bear saunter slowly between two cars. So I greeted him with an arrow and hid bravely in a car for a couple of hours. I got out to look for him and quickly found him lying dead in his den just across the bridge. Except he wasn't dead, just sleeping, and he woke up and mauled me and then came a blizzard and I froze to death. Totally fooled me.