northernshrike

I am sorry - but I also really want to add this example. If I have a 0.11kg 49% durability Ever-Flame canister, and a 0.39kg, 50% Ever-Flame canister, I cannot merge both together because their durability is off. But what I can do is refuel my storm lantern, removing them from my inventory, and then if I have a Jerry Can, break down said storm lantern and it magically goes into the Jerry Can without a hitch. I think that example sort of highlights, a bit, how odd and variable the rules around lantern oil truly is.

Jerry cans** and lantern fuel have durability. I understand why they do, but the durability of such is never a factor in most, if any, games. Because durability never lines up, it's hard to "merge" lantern fuels with one another. Yet at the same time, if I catch a fish with a Jerry Can on me, and cook said fish with a Jerry Can on me, the lantern fuel i extract from the fish is deposited straight into the Jerry Can itself. To translate this into English: sometimes durability matters, other times it does not. It is unclear whether the durability applies to the oil or to the Jerry Can/Ever-Flame canisters as the game's feedback to the player sometimes suggests it's the oil (like with Ever-Flame canisters) and other times it's the Jerry Can (fish and scrapping lanterns that deposit fuel straight into the Jerry Can). Meaning the mechanic for oil is not consistent, and it creates a quality-of-life problem for the player: Ever-Flame canister spam. It is confusing that durability applies to Ever-Flame canisters, via its oil quality (i assume), but for Jerry Cans it doesn't. What is the difference between breaking down a storm lantern and receiving an Ever-Flame canister vs it being deposited straight into the Jerry Can? The answer is a different set of rules for each item. I can't merge 50% durability Ever-Flame canisters with 49% durability Ever-Flame, but if I have a Jerry Can none of that matters. I am over-explaining, but I am trying to be really clear here. As a lovely quality of life change - make Jerry Cans (please see comment below, I know they are supposed to be permanent, but they aren't) permanent fixtures in the world. A tool like any other. Allow me to merge my Ever-Flame canisters into my Jerry Can, and have the Jerry Can, itself, have durability. As it stands right now, it is confusing, and requires me to make sure that I have a Jerry Can while I fish, or harvest a storm lantern, to avoid having my inventory spammed with Ever-Flame canisters of various degrees of durability. Jerry Cans CAN be heavy, and their favourable weight ratio and item consolidation ability means I have the incentive to carry something I don't need to perform an activity (ie: fishing) just so my inventory isn't spammed with 0.50 kg Ever-Flame canisters. In a game where Carry Weight is a resource, this is a quality of life issue. Something is just harder than it has to be. Means I can't catch as many fish as I want, or stay out as long - because I have to make sure I am lugging this can around because I can't squirt some Ever-Flame fuel into a Jerry Can after-the-fact. **Please note: the wiki (https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Jerry_can) says that the Jerry Can is supposed to stay in your inventory when empty, but for me it never does and I have plenty of examples on my stream where it simply disappears when it reaches 0 fuel. This may be a bug, and it may be intermittent, but what I am asking, specifically and in addition, is for for the ability to merge Ever-Flame canisters into the Jerry Can while also having a persistent, functional, Jerry Can in the game world/player's inventory. If this means Jerry Cans/Ever-Flame canisters need to be harder to find, I am alright with that. I forgot to add: this is important because it is important to know the extent of your resources. Ever-Flame spam makes it harder to know how much oil you have.

This has been mentioned before but I wanted to throw a nickel into the mix. Starvation tactics have their use. It's needed to survive. I want/need it in the game. It's critical. However, I should not be able to permanently survive on 750-900 calories per day using this method over an incredibly extended period of time. That's 5 cat tails, or two granola and a cat tail per day before bed - it is a very simple threshold to hit, and it being simple is okay! The point I am making is that it is trivializing an aspect of your needs in relation to the others. On Interloper I can have over a hundred cat tails easily, restoring lost condition all on 750-900 calories per day. I don't need to worry about an entire need throughout and the cost of maintenance is very inexpensive in relation to the other needs. Some have made the argument that the "Well Fed" buff mitigates this gap. I disagree. The Well Fed bonus is an incentive, for sure, in that I want it to make my life easier, but it is not a necessity to survive. Working around carry weight is something every player learns, which is why it makes the buff not as valuable as extending my food supply as long as possible. Hunger, as it stands, is not as necessary to survive as other needs due to the low amount of effort you'd need to be at condition recovery parity with what you lose during the day. As I said - Starvation tactics needs to be in the game, but I disagree that it can, and should, have such a lasting permanency in a playthrough if I so choose. I hesitate throwing around the words "not realistic" - but this is a dimension to explore that can give us an idea of an in-game solution. 1200 calories is needed for the body to not starve, and with all the moving and travelling our characters do, more calories are needed, on average, than 750-900. A possible idea for a solution is that there would be a debuff that triggers in a similar fashion to Cabin Fever. Meaning, that "starvation tactics" suffer a penalty the longer it is used, and it is calculated by the X average of calories over Y days. For gameplay purposes, 1200 might be a happy medium for average calories, but you're the experts :). The debuff that occurs once the condition fully develops is one where you simply cannot regain any condition. Period. Emergency stim still works, but if you're starving, you're lethargic. You're weak. You won't recover quickly or easily from condition hits. This makes everything more deadly and it creates a unique condition that you'll want to avoid. It means that I would need to weigh dangerous situations with my food supply. It also keeps this debuff in range with the other food related debuff: parasites. I recognize not everyone would want to play with this, but I am excited at the prospect of forcing myself to sacrifice time and temperature need to scavenge that deer carcass because I am incredibly close to a starvation penalty. As of right now, on Interloper, stopping to harvest a carcass does not even cross my mind unless I want to craft some boots or snares. I know the maps well enough to find the cat tails I need until I secure a bow. This changes the strategic calculations the player has to make, and I think that's part of the magic that this game presents in such a compelling way. This solution means that starvation tactics can continue to exist, but NOT into perpetuity. I also understand that, just because I find cat tails easily on Interloper, that not everyone else does. That's okay! However, Interloper is something you work toward, it is hard to just drop into and, because of that, I don't think this solution adds any undue difficult that wouldn't already exist for someone unaccustomed to Interloper already. The debate, and challenge, I guess, is whether this is applicable to all difficulties and I am unsure of what that answer is. Anyway, I am not an expert at game dev, just a thought I had and wanted to be clear about. To conclude, an area that I think can be improved is how starvation and the utilization of starvation tactics are handled in the game. Starvation tactics is needed to survive interloper. However, there should be a balance between needing 750-900 calories per day with the consequences of eating that few calories per day. Well Fed is a buff that, while useful, is not necessary for survival and so, if you're forced to choose between keeping said buff and surviving, the choice is painfully obvious and it therefore fails solve the core problem at hand. I've offered some amateur solution ideas, but I would love to enrich my experience a bit more by improving this area of the game.