Enigmaecho

On 12/14/2023 at 1:40 AM, AdamvR said:

I'm also afraid that the programming, and even more, the execution of it could be very tricky.
Not only are further items not rendered, but I think there might be a distance beyond which movement is not even simulated, and only getting updated once we get close to it again. This would at least be a very obvious way to save on resources - and undoing it might be both a challenge in programming, and even more a potentially significant continuous computing power hike... (I am no game programmer though)

Seeing the above as the potential cost of adding binoculars, I'm curious what the benefits would be...
What would you be using it for in the game?

The issue of rendering isn’t there as I’ve already explained the long dark already renders the draw distance much further than a huge portion of games that already have a zoom, animations do as well on clear days you can easily see wildlife miles away and watch them move around and finally there already is a zoom function in the game on the rifle I am also not a programmer but I really feel like the difficulty in adding them is being greatly exaggerated zoom has been a thing in games since the 80s folks I think hinterland is more than capable if they want to do it but to answer the why, there’s a number of reasons both practical and for amusement, hunting or checking snares from a distance, scouting for wolves or bears or the cougar, sightseeing, potentially a boost to cartography 

On 2/14/2024 at 10:29 AM, jhickie said:

I like to play long runs on Interloper, and one of the challenges I set up for myself is to collect everything in the game on the collectibles screen. So, notes, polaroids, cairns, buffers, etc. It's a worthy challenge that takes a while to complete. I've only done it once before.

Buffers have always been the toughest part to complete. At least cairns are static with known locations. Buffers are really frustrating. Always my last part to finish. The way the used to function was that you just had to wait over and over for auroras to spawn new buffers, and it was only one per night. It was maddening to try to collect them all, and sometimes I'd be camped out at a location for weeks or even months to get all of the buffers from that location. 

Somewhere along the line, perhaps recently, an update changed all that. Now, theoretically, you are able to spawn multiple buffers during each aurora by simply going outside and coming back in. Yay! This works at most locations, and I was able to clear all buffers from a location many times. Got all 5 buffers at the Credit Union in one night, same for Hibernia, same for the Rural Store.

However, some locations still don't play nice. One such location is the buffer at the FM Radio Tower. I've been here for nearly a month, seen 12 auroras, and EVERY SINGLE TIME it's the same buffer. It's infuriating. I have it memorized at this point. "He wasn't kidding. This old marsh goes on forever. Swallow me right up." Every time I see this buffer I want to bash my head into my keyboard. Since there's no door to go out and come back in with to spawn new buffers, I tried the nearby cave. But when I enter, come back out, and go to the laptop, the buffer is completely blank. No text.

Does anyone have any idea wtf is going on with these buffers? It seems like a wonky game mechanic that isn't functioning properly. It's inconsistent and really frustrating. I've looked everywhere for info that may help, but found nothing. If there's a trick that anyone out there knows, I'm all ears!

Buffers unfortunately are set per computer ones that have 5 memories have a 20% chance to be any ones with 4 have a 25% sometimes they just get banged on the same one in my complete run it was the PV store and signal hill that looped on one left for weeks then it happened at broken rail but the one that takes me the longest is always lower dam because you can’t cheese it you get one shot per aurora unless you crash cheese which I’m not a fan of, i was able to go into the waterfall cave at FM to get that one to change so you might have a bug in your save

1 hour ago, SuperRetro said:

So I've been making a massive expedition from Timberwolf mountain, down through Blackrock and Keeper's pass to Pleasant Valley using the Travois. I've noticed that the amount of stuff you carry (I thought it would be a good idea to try to bring 100+ kilos of gear with me) increases the amount of condition loss. However, I'm wondering whether or not dragging it over a road, rock, or ice instead of snow increases the damage it takes. Anyone know if this is real, or if it's just a constant distance value thing, or otherwise that calculates it. I'm on Stalker Difficulty for extra context.

From what I can tell it’s a flat calculation of drag time last night I loaded up a full bear and nearly maxed out the sled and despite me walking noticeably slower the sled didn’t degrade any faster down Timberwolf mountain than dragging it back and forth down the road and train tracks in ZoC from idle camp to unquenched extraction for over a month 

1 hour ago, ManicManiac said:

Personally, I'm all for the power of Player Choice.

For those folks who like being able to goat around, then I'm glad they have that option.
For those folks who don't like the idea of being able to goat around... then I think it's fair to say that they can simply choose not to do that.
 

 

Exactly my point buddy so many things on the wishlist amount to “change the game because I can’t not do xyz” stripped down to its base layers that’s how we got loper and custom in the first place and it’s never enough 🤷🏻‍♂️ 

Tales is like a case in point, 

no tales on loper that’s bs

::add tales:: crappy loot this bs…

add cooking… there’s too much food i want survive not the sims

make the ingredients scarce 

ugh there too few of the new ingredients to make it worth it on loper 

We want a challenge

big new challenging regions 

“why would you make these”

some folks are just never happy 

1 hour ago, Kycko said:

For all: we have blockers in some places if you remember. I know at least one in the Ravine, you can't just go down the cliff without the rope. This means the devs want to block this mechanic at least for some places.

1. Devs can use zero chance of sliding for the first 3-4 steps;
2. As I said they can "roll the dice" for sliding only if the ground is >60°, not "just on the edge of the rock"; the game checks this value already for calculating sprains;
3. If you are exploring and going on some little rock (2 meters high for example) you will not get any debuffs because the heigth is very small.

All the new players learn how to play the game, and they just wouldn't do this after it happens once. Just like with all the other risky mechanics.

My suggestion is not about randomising, it's a way to force players to avoid such cheating. 🙂 If you know that you will slide and get problems, you just will not use this mechanic.

Nitpicking specific points and ignoring the context doesn’t help your argument, folks still learning the game or even mid term players shouldn’t have to worry they’re struggle to find cairns or cartographer is going to be 10x harder because some loper player who uses god mode and out of bounds glitches doesn’t have the self control to not billy goat off a sheer cliff to preserve their own immersion 

8 hours ago, Kycko said:

I use dev console, flying, godmode and many other cheating tools for experiments and testing in separate saves. When I'm going to just play the game I disable all the mods and I have no problem with "just don't cheat".

Also I have no problem with abusive mechanics like "place a torch behind you and aim on the wolf with a stone" (I'm just litting the torch and going with it).

The only abusive mechanic that I can't force myself to avoid is descending down steep cliffs, at least in some risky situations.

That still is a YOU issue not a devs need to implement a mechanic against everyone because some folks lack self control, it’s comes back around and around take responsibility for your own play style if you think it’s a cheat don’t do it 

you’re considering this mechanic from the veiw of bypassing ropes by cliff diving or billy goating down but what about the thousands of other times you are on a very steep hill just doing mapping or exploring or just being a new player, folks get to a point where they know the game inside and out and then forget everyone else isn’t necessarily on that level, been playin since release never cliff dived and very rarely billy goat but I don’t begrudge those who do they got skills and a risk tolerance I don’t I sure as hell don’t think the game needs to be made worse for them or their enjoyment taken over it 

21 hours ago, Kycko said:

A lot of players (me too) used to go down of steep cliffs without any ropes. That's bad I think, I even don't want myself to play this style, but I can't force myself to avoid it. 🙂

So my suggestion is to add a chace of uncontrollable sliding if player stands on a very steep cliff (>60°). The game "throws the dice" for each new step so it would be impossible to go down from very high hills.

And uncontrollable sliding should not be the only penalty... We can have sprains, HP debuff, broken ribs... depending on the hill's heigth.

Why would they add a feature to solve an issue of cheating yourself by choice? I have beaten this horse into a skeleton, we have nigh unlimited control over how our runs go and there’s still folks that take issues lol bruh just don’t cheat 😂

For example the route that runs through Milton and connects to black rock loops around at the collapse at the top of the map we know from dialogue that used to serve as the route to the “inner island”

3 hours ago, hozz1235 said:

At the end of episode 3, Astrid is in CH.  It looks like she is walking on the road towards DP?  We also know that Astrid washes up on a shore in a boat so we know PM needs to be on a coast.  Seems like CH/DP is on the opposite end of the island from the Far Territories?  I'm guessing PM will be in a new zone near DP.

I agree Perseverance Mills, possibly Rupert’s Landing and Suzuki Radio Telescope will be in the large grey area that’s obvious from multiple perspectives and conversations during wintermute my wonder is if the curvature of the rail lines in the territories sit at a higher elevation above perseverance and not deeper into the island 👍 it’s definitely not an overly strong theory it just seems a bit sus there would be 2 instillations on the island for different purposes From different organizations on opposite sides of the map 🤔

On 12/31/2023 at 2:07 AM, Deadlock said:

One thing that would improve the use of the vehicles would be the ability to look around 360 degrees. I understand the game isn't meant to be entirely realistic, but this is one of the weirdest things. When there are wolves and bears about, no one is going to limit themselves to only facing forward in a vehicle. Something else that could be added would be siphoning fuel from the vehicles for use in lanterns or fire starting. Even the ability to harvest cloth from the seats would be nice. 

At one time I believe there was intent for fuel siphoning as many vehicles you can open the gas door, for a while a few cars had (heater) over the vents but you’d hear a click with no function that also may have been a nixed feature turning around 360 though I think we all would Love that lol

During the events of episode 4 we learn from jace that Atwood is located at Suzuki Radio Telescope, an instillation shielded from the Aurora and it’s effects 

The security chiefs log indicates that Rudiger made his escape to “the transmission station over the mountains” 

Other logs suggest he was protected from the illness affecting the miners and security crews 

buffers logs imply the trans island rail is a looped line (contradicted by the current world map)

My Question is have we all been missing huge clues that the far territories are somewhere near Perseverance Mills

🤔

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not when I came time to die, discover I had not lived”

21 hours ago, GothSkunk said:

If that's the case, then each survival run ought to have an objective to complete that ends the run without requiring the player to die.

 

It is counter-intuitive to design a game based on surviving the elements, where the ONLY objective is "survive," only to say that "long-term survival runs are not the intent of the game." In fact, dare I say it, it's downright idiotic.

To a point you’re right but you have to consider all perspectives, like let’s say to be extremely generous 50% of the players have been here since the start 25% started with redux 1-4 and 25% are brand new with tales

of the total population from discussions across socials a good 60% have never explored the entire play area either in one run or across their gameplay then there’s 40% of us who routinely clear the whole island cartographer in under 200days and then just chill doing the same survival loop until we get bored, a new region drops, or we make a mistake and game over. 
 

To bring it back around to the topic, I want scurvy in my long run where I’ve been stockpiling the foods and ingredients and have done everything possible in a single run but I know I’m probably less than 10% of the community doing a run like that and scurvy could wreck newbies and single region players 

5 hours ago, RedFox said:

Hello fellow survivors!

     I was doing some browsing on the forums and couldn't find anything recent (December 2021 was the last) about the lack of new locations under the "Surveyed Locations" list. I was running through ZoC and trying to map as many locations as I could on my Interloper run, only to go look to see how many I had left to realize that there wasn't even a list there. In the Dec 2021 post there was an admin that said there was a plan to add Blackrock to the list, but I can assume since it's not there that it hasn't been done yet. Has there been any movement to add the other new locations to the list of Surveyed Locations? Appreciate the time to answer when you get around to it!

 

 

The known locations list is tied into Faithful Cartographer and I believe they made the decision to stop adding to it in order to not make that achievement too difficult, I’m not 100% but I’m pretty sure they said something about it at one point 

On 12/14/2023 at 6:24 PM, Cyclone35 said:

Something interesting happened during a normal playthrough of mine, I took the mountain climbing path in Ash Canyon to acquire the backpack expansion. However, the rope climb down towards the mine was missing a rope. Sometimes its close by, other times I'd have to travel farther to find one. But I had no luck finding that rope. I felt upset, dissatisfied that I came all this way and can't continue further. If I was a hardcore player, I would journey far to obtain a spare rope from another region (spoiler: I'm not). But then it hit me, in a realistic scenario, wouldn't it be possible to detach a rope that you tied to a rock and reuse it somewhere else. Some survivalists would bring there own rope with them and reuse it when necessary. So wouldn't make sense if you can detach the rope and put it on a different rock? That way players don't have to walk a long distance just to find 1 rope hidden somewhere on the map.

Let me tell you about the 40 second rule used in every (good) open world game. Study has shown that a player can stay immerse in a videogame, as long as they don't spend over 40 seconds traveling between points of interest. If the player discovers something of interest along the way, that timer gets reset. If they can see their destination  But if all their doing is walking to their destination, it will suck the life out of them. It makes you lose your immersion as it feels more like a chore to get from point A to point B. This is what I felt looking for that stupid red rope on a mountain side. 

If you’re trying to apply the 40second rule to the long dark you might as well just not play, it takes literal hours to travel across the game when most open worlds can be walked side to side in under 10 mins. The fundamentals of TLD are inventory and resource management and everything is coded around that principle, we can detach ropes for the explicit purpose of relocating them to lay out maps in a way that works for us, if they were to already have all ropes active it would eliminate a large portion of challenges by allowing access to all short cut routes 

22 hours ago, JerimiahSettle said:

There's a whole tab for can recipes, yet there isn't a single one in the game. It would be awesome to cook up broth or soups in it, and since it's smaller it would create a 'small soup portion' that takes less overall ingredients to make. Same with broth, less ingredients, but also only 1 portion. Also, this should make cans lose durability. What else could be cooked in a can? 

I’m thinking there will be a few with update 5, maybe some soups or special hot beverages 

7 hours ago, Leeanda said:

Has anyone else noticed this?   I was in the birch area in twm when I heard a wolf growling /eating.. expecting a fresh deer I chased him off to find a frozen carcass instead....  It's the first time I've seen that..is it new or have I missed something?

Could be a timing thing, I’ve noticed if it’s really cold the carcass will freeze during your harvest animation 🤔

8 hours ago, Semple Fi said:

What are y’all trying to die from, OLD AGE??

Because I’ve done everything else!? Why are you so eager to restart a run from scratch for every single update? 

silliness aside back in the day I had more free time to dedicate 25 or so hours a week to the game now I have like 5-10 so if I want to go for a completion run it takes me a good 6 months or so to even get halfway almost a year to get 500 days and if I goof and I die that’s one thing but god forbid I keep the same run alive for every new update so each unveil serves as a mini resource boost as well as all the other cool stuff, the scuvry decision is going to leave a sour paranoia for the rest of the dlc run of “what’ll be the next thing existing saves get screwed on” photomode? Safehouse custom? THE TRADER!?

2 hours ago, Semple Fi said:

Is it really that the Devs are saying your survival style is Wrong?

 Or is programming a game substantially harder when your player base is always screaming FASTER!! MORE STUFF!! UPDATES EVERY MONTH!! FIX BUGS!! FASTER!! MORE NOW!! INTERLOPER WANT NEW ADVENTURE!!!

……..

 Don’t they have to do an entire play through EVERY TIME they make a change or addition to the game? Has the game expanded to a capacity exponentially larger than Mystery Lake?

Or am misunderstanding?

Maybe working scurvy into existing saves whilst still pacifying the masses at the door…. Wasn’t worth the juice from the squeeze.  🤷🏻‍♂️

 

Again, maybe I’m misunderstanding.  But programming seems complicated and articulate to me.  And it’s already taken ridiculously long just to finish off Wintermute.  By all rights, that should’ve gotten priority because it’s always been part of the original game base from creation.  
Taking ANY longer to finish off the BASE GAME just to squeeze in scurvy 🍊🧃 gets a a big fat NO from me.  
 

I don’t think the Devs have any issue with your play style.  

Raph on numerous occasions has expressed that long term survival runs are not the intent of the game and that has been one of the main justifications of “just get over it and start a new run” and that’s fine in the sense of it is his vision not ours but it doesn’t make it sting less when the redux came out “sorry we gotta save wipe won’t do another”, tales came out “sorry gotta save wipe won’t do another” tales updates come out “if you want to experience the new content you paid for….  start over” this is one of the very few criticisms I have of the company, if it was a development issue say that but I didn’t and still don’t think that “we didn’t want to burden existing saves with the struggle of a new affliction” was a good reasoning on grounds of we’ve never been spared an affliction for any reason before why this one and now even more so after community testing verifying that it’s not even that difficult to combat with no resources aside respawning one’s 

touching on your last comment be grateful it has taken SO LONG to finish the base game those 10 years have us at least 10 extra regions and countless assets 😉☺️

3 hours ago, James Hickok said:

Yeah that is why i decided to play my new run like the whole world was stripped from human food, rose hips, reishi. Wanted to see if this will make such a big impact like they suggested. Well, it doesnt so yeah.... i feel the same. 

It remains a disappointment, I’ve buttoned up this run with every collectable found every location mapped and all my bases established and now im just counting days, scurvy would have been a VERY welcomed new challenge while I fart around waiting for mountain pass and perseverance mills to release, a little bitter I’d have to sac my 100% completion to have scurvy but don’t want to go for another 100% just to have them arbitrarily decide a feature from part 4 or 5 won’t be available to existing saves and have to restart another year of progress, it’s not a great feeling to be told by Raph your long term survival style is wrong so oh well you don’t get this or that new feature, start a new save 🤷🏻‍♂️

Play long enough and you’ll be gifted a transition from the aurora to falling snow. For me it is one of my favorite times in the game but it often makes me wish and wonder why the aurora can’t be active during any weather, the change in the ambience of the lights transform the scenery

It’s known bug in progress of fix think they mentioned it at bottom of last hot fix 

Be like Yukon Cornelius, stay safe in the wilderness 

On 12/21/2023 at 9:00 PM, Glacia said:

I know this question have been already a common topic since the game exist, but several things have changed with new resources, mechanics and extra difficulty layers like the newly introduced Scurvy affliction.

So if we take everything you need on the long term, beachcombing and a resonable fishing source it's a must; you eventually run out of cloth, leather, arrow resources and other essential stuff. Even if you fish on lakes to prevent scurvy, you can't survive forever without renewable cloth and arrows (Mostly, the second).

Actually i find coastal highway much more punishing and tricky than other 'hard' regions, because cabin fever, long travel distances and the lack of forge/milling machine are a great annoyance. It's anyways the go-to for most players, but i think living on desolation point or bleak inlet let you survive infinitely without ever needing to leave the region:

- Easy beachcomb to get all needed resources and also food.

- Easy hunting and less risky than other regions.

- Forge or milling machine for infinite tools.

- Small regions = It's easy to quick move and avoid any damage, even on bad weather.

- At least if you have the essentials tools and clothing, you can keep them forever.

If we even go further, bleak inlet offers the best fishing spot shared only with the timberwolf mountain hut, a cabin a few steps of your home. This is something desolation point can't offer, and also the six stove on the lighthouse enables the best efficient cooking in the entire game because it's windshielded and outdoors to get the bonus duration. So bleak inlet it's harder but much more rewarding once you get the idea than DP, making it 'arguably' the best region by far in the game for the long term, and desolation point the second best but with a much easier experience surviving here.

What safehouse you use for the very long term?  

 

 

 

After the first yr I stay nomadic establishing a safehouse in each region and transitions with rock caches my most frequent haunts are in no order Mountaineers Hut, Homesteaders Respite, Camp Office(always) Paradise meadows, Stone Church, fishing camp, Mollys Farm in PV(PVFarmhouse) and newly Drift Island cottage and Mindful Cabin

i would say arguably mountaineers remains one of the best even with scurvy there’s fishing and giant birch forest carting cloth from the coast isn’t that much of a hassle and leather can be obtained from moose in a pinch 

On 12/21/2023 at 4:19 AM, James Hickok said:

Im reaching day 90ish on my new loper run and scurvy risk appeared around day 65-70. I decided not to harvest any of rose hips, reishi, acorns, i only make birch tea but i dont use tea on loper anyway only on harder difficulties. I also decided not to eat any of the human food - i gather it all in my main base. So around day 65 my diet switched from mostly cattails to meat and scurvy decided to show up. 

I have cuntered it by eating a few cattails but the next day it came back. At that moment i have hunted all of the game in ML and it needed a restart so i decided to go fishing. I have been fishing for around 2 days and one night and caught quite a number of them on lvl 2 fishing (no lure, no bait). While i was fishing the fish was cooking and they were my diet for the duration. After i finished i hauled the remaining fish to my main base @ ML camp office and stored it near my meat supply. 

After that i didnt have scurvy for a week or more. When it came back i ate 2x fish and it vanished. Atm im after a week in game and still no scurvy risk. It seems like all you need to do i diversify your diet a bit with fish and thats it. You dont need to eat fish everyday - just one or 2 once a week or even more is ok. NO BIG DEAL. Even if your wolrd has no harvestables or food eaten. Should have been implemented in old saves. 

This just reignites my irritation that they kept it out of old saves, starting to feel more like “don’t want to burden existing saves with scurvy” was actually “we didn’t feel like making it work in old saves “ 😑

9 hours ago, FreeSTONE said:

The Cabin Fever.

As introvert myself (and I believe most of us here), I am constantly surprised on how quickly Cabin Fever develops.

I know, Custom game can switch it off, but such on-off switch is too crude. I don't ask for disabling it completely.What there would be, like, "Cabin fever after [1/3/5/7] days"? Wouldn't that be great?

I understand the reasons, why the affliction exists: to push the player out of safety, out of shelter, to go out explore, take risks... so the game is not boring. And not too much about maintaining a base, but about the world.

Unfortunately, when playing on harder difficulties (like Interloper), Cabin Fever is what pushes me out and die: as sometimes there is just nowhere to go - outside is a storm, then aurora, then another storm... and inside, Cabin Fever. Can't be in, can't be out. (After 130 days in Interloper, with all tools and weapons, forced to go out in long storm, just as I had to sleep somewhere else?) (Not mentioning all the chairs, benches and sofas, that I pass, while heading to sleep in a cave.)

So in short: the Cabin Fever is fine, but somehow strikes too quickly. It would be great to be able to fine-tune this option. (Or, to fight it by different means than going out - like, looking out of window or reading a book, but that is more complicate to implement).

This is a surprising take to me as I feel the opposite, it takes so long for the risk to even develop and then to cure it by spending like 10 min outside seems op I’d rather it take as long to get rid of as it does to get the affliction, Chem poison is even more reasonable about the rate of affliction vs affliction cooldown, cabin fever imho is the weakest affliction next to insomnia