Vareta

14 hours ago, V3NA said:

Hello, I'm new to the forums and this is the first discussion I'll post on.

Personally I think the urban landscape would be quite interesting but at the same time it depends what kind of a landscape that would be. If it's a big city with tall buildings even if they'd be accessible I'm quite sure I'd get bored and find it tiresome real fast to explore these boxes. I guess we'd need smaller settlements. Let's disregard the tiresome and boresome aspects and let's say it's a fairly sized city with a big population. Sure, it might be fun to explore it and survive it but if there would be groups of survivors formed by all kinds of individuals fighting would start to happen as you've said. Which I think is probably the part I'd dislike a lot. A city would be different than Great Bear and one difference is the availability of firearms. Let's imagine that presumably quite a lot of people survived the first flare. And days after fights broke out in the city, killing, stealing and etc.. IMHO that would be a shooter more than a pure survival game because it wouldn't be very logical to roam in the city and pass-by trouble that would end in blood. Take a look at the convicts seen on Episode 1. Cities hold much more scum than one can imagine.

Basically this is how I'd not like the game to be realized 😄

Well, now that I think about it, it would be kinda stupid for people to shoot each other instantly. In that scenario people would probably try to hudle together as much as possible, yeah sure there would be some struggles but I dont think anyone would resort to an outright shootout. So unlike TLD, this fictional game, could be about survival in a group instead of alone with rare occasions of agressions between humans.

11 hours ago, Admin said:

Moved to General Discussion as requested by the original poster.

thanks !!

3 hours ago, Stinky socks said:

It will likely be so long ways away that it's even too early to start discussing #2 me thinks.

We haven't even seen the ending of the first game yet.

this is not a wish (although it is in the wish list...😅) its just a way to share a concept that to me is pretty cool.

Oh god I just realized I put this on the wish list. Totally unintentional. If any moderator is seeing this can you please move it to discussion forum ? 

7 hours ago, Lexilogo said:

Personally I would prefer a sequel to The Long Dark be themed around non-Winter seasons, and in a more urban environment. Get in on that "reclaimed by nature" aethstetic lots of people like.

I personally also don't envision Will/Astrid being in a hypothetical sequel as protagonists. Maybe other people feel differently, but IMO neither of them really feel like they'd be recurring characters in a sequel. [joke about Jennifer Hale's paycheck goes here] I think the Quiet Apocalypse itself is the main plot feature that should be expanded upon in a sequel, and that's probably best served via viewing it from a completely different perspective, such as someone else living in a different country altogether and several months afterwards instead of the immediate aftermath.

Well yes Will and Astrid do not have to be the protagonists, to be honest, I don’t care. What I really like is the idea of seeing the effects of the flare on a more...civilized setting. Though I believe it would be best to keep the permanent winter, I mean it’s kind of the main theme, also changing it would imply changing the art style which I absolutely adore.

This is just some food for thought, but imagine that after TLD, Will and Astrid leave great bear and go to the mainland. There they find a broken, frozen, urban landscape, where the effects of the flare are especially felt. People start to panic, essential resources run low, ellectricity goes down and fighting starts to happen. Now what is left are small groups of people who steal and kill each other in order to survive. While radically different from the original game, it would give room to certain systems that first game cannot include. Dont you think this would be cool ? Remember this just a discussion about a game that does not even exist.

On 1/20/2021 at 10:14 PM, Ps4Methuselah said:

Ok...the first time i commented on this topic, i shot from the hip. My apologies.

I have a dog in real life so i asked myself would i want him with me in a survival situation? The answer is probably not...he just wouldn't be very useful because he is too timid.

Then i asked myself if i would want a virtual dog in TLD like the wardog i had in Skyrim....sure why not. 

I have no idea how they are gonna feed it on loper but all other levels should be fine. I like using a bow,...someone else wants a 12 gauge, you would love a travelling companion, it's all fine by me brother.

The great thing about The Long Dark is there is no "right or wrong" way to play the game,...everyone is free to create a world that they feel comfortable surviving in.

I hope you get your K-9 companion my friend....as they say, mans best friend is dog. 

Im sorry but I do not remember what you commented, so that probably means that it had nothing wrong with it. Either way, just as the title says, this is a discussion, negative opinions are more than welcome, Ive learned a lot from those... 😅

First off, I am not, in anyway, trying to criticize the way TLD is being updated. I just want to understand what the future plan for this game is.

While watching the forums, I’ve seen many extremely radical propositions: multiplayer, shotguns, chainsaws...(I’m not saying any of these should be added, specially multiplayer). But the point is, what is acceptable ? Should the devs only continue to add new regions and some misc items ? Do you think that implementing something new and quite different could be good ?

The thing is, that just like most games, old players tend to dislike big changes, not for all of them obviously, but it is something that happens, and so I see a lot of old players refuting new ideas, most of them rightfully so I’ll admit 😂. But sometimes I see something that is extremely interesting and then theres a lot of replies saying that it doesn’t fit the game, or that it’s unnecessary.

So what do you think ? Please share your opinion. Thank you  

1 hour ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Everything decays... I agree, but you're talking about eventualities that virtually no one will reach in any sort of reasonably length of run... and what I asked was WHY you wanted to "force' people into using hide clothing.  Now you're trying to tell me that repairing something to 200% condition makes more sense than what the game does now.  Clothing decays.  Sure, you can repair the clothing on your back indefinitely... but chances are it will at some point in the game roll a "ruined" status after an attack.  If not on your back and you're not keeping tabs on it, it will slowly decay while being stored in a container until it hits a ruined state where it cannot be repaired and is only useful for harvesting into cloth.

Also, note, I haven't actually said I object to the basic theory behind this... but IRL, it would take many more years than people play for single runs in this game for clothing to fall apart in that way when it is being repaired by someone with increasing skill at making the repairs.  So, to incorporate this, they would have to, IMO, revamp the current sewing level up AND they would have to set another unreasonably fast decay rate for it to have any meaningful effect in the game.

I don’t want to force anyone to do anything, I just stated a consequence that would eventually happen if this were to be added. A consequence that mirrors the already existing weapon system, for example.

Now about how it would work. I’ll take you through my thought process. Originally my first idea was to use a limited repair system, basically a piece of clothing had a limited number of repairs it can do before ruining. Now this had a problem, when you were repairing something that was, for example, at 90% condition, you would lose one repair, for only a 10% condition gain, when you could have gotten maybe 30% if the clothes were a little more damaged. So instead of that, I thought that clothes should have a limited amount of condition you can repair. Thus when repairing something at 90%, you get your clothes in a perfect state, and 10 % is removed from the maximum amount of condition you can repair afterwards. Try to understand this with the other coat example I gave. I don’t think I can explain this any better, I mean it makes sense to me. I also do not see how anything would have to be changed to accommodate this, I think the current decay rate can coexist perfectly with it.

10 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

I disagree... there are usually several ways to go about getting something done in this game.  I was watching Atheenon the other day and he was embarrassed how many matches he still had on a 700+ day Interloper run... so, most players will never be "forced" use a magnifying lens.  You can stone rabbits indefinitely... so you may never be "forced" to use a bow even if your rifle and revolver and flare gun run out of ammo... and then run out of supplies to make more ammo.  You can also run deer towards wolves and the wolves will bring down the deer for you... then throw stones at the wolf from a distance to scare them off their kill.  You can also snare rabbits and fish.

In general, the clothing in TLD degrades far more quickly than similar-use clothing IRL.  My ski suit is 10 years old now and still going strong.  I have ski sweaters at least that old and I know of people who own animal-based clothing that is 100 years old.  The reason are stuff degrades so quickly is so it's possible to work up to sewing level 5 within the timeframe of a "normal" run.  To get my achievement... I had to resort, at 500 days, repairing everything I could find whenever it dropped below 100% conditions for severall in-game days just to grind it to Level 5.  Another player here reported having a similar experience on another thread here just yesterday.  Realistically, how low would a repair cap have to be to even come into effect in a normal run... and wouldn't it still feel at odds with the current sewing skill level up system and rate to get to Level 5?

Even with this addition, you’d  still be able to do that exact same grinding process. Let’s make an an example: 

- you have a coat that is at 25% condition, and the maximum amount of condition you can repair is 200%. Now you repair it to a perfect state. In that moment you’d have a 100% coat of which you could repair a maximum of 125% condition. Mind you this is just an example, not how the numbers would go. When you level up, that maximum amount would increase, thus making clothing last longer. I simply cannot see how this system would be at odds with the current sewing skill.

Also you said that you aren’t actually forced to do anything, yes it would take a massive amount of time for you to be “forced” into doing something, but presumably it will happen, no matter how well you manage your resources. Of course no one would ever have the patience to do such a long run, these systems aren't meant to starve you of resources, but give them more value. If you could make ammunition presumably infinitely, you’d stop caring about saving ammunition. This is the situation that clothing finds it self in, theoretically, it can me maintained for eternity if you craft enough fishing hooks and beachcomb for cloth. 
 

I believe this addition fits perfectly with the idea that “everything eventually decays” that is embedded within this game.

18 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

You're the one to stated that you wanted this to "force us to use animal derived clothing entirely."  That's not possible because we don't have an "animal-derived" alternative to underwear and socks.  Your statement was not about ones ability to use up every sock and underwear on the map... and neither was mine.  I used Interloper as an example, but the basis of my comment applies to ALL difficulty levels... We don't need to "forced" to resort to using the animal-based alternatives.  Most people craft and use at least some of them in their later game playthroughs... if even just for added warmth, protection, and/or aesthetics.  Why do you want to "force" players to do something specific in a "sandbox" game?

This game forces you to do a lot of things. Eventually you will be forced to use magnifying lenses and use the bow exclusively, for example. How is this different ? It gives more value to clothing, thus promoting its collection. It would also give a little more reason to hunt, as at some point you will need to make another set of clothes. And I mean, realistically this makes sense, you wouldn’t to “patch up” a piece of clothing indefenetly.

4 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

It's not really an issue since the warmth and/or protection value of the crafted clothing makes it quite attractive.  The "better" manufactured clothing doesn't spawn if Baseline Resource Availability is set to "Low" (as in Interloper); and combined with the world getting colder over time setting (which is also high in Loper), players are pretty much compelled to make and use a bear hide coat (or two).  Also, even  clothing in perfect repair can be instantly be ruined during an attack or fall ( and animals can occasionally attack even when they are set to Passive).

Invoking a clothing repair limit would work counter to the current sewing level-up, which repairs clothing by a greater percentage the higher the player's skill.  Furthermore, there is no craftable alternative for underwear or socks currently in the game.

I disagree with you. First off, your only focus is on one difficulty type, Interloper, in which yes, crafted clothes are a priority, but I think you missed the fact that the limited repair would also apply to this clothing type.

Also, I do not see how this would conflict with the base sewing skill, when you level up, the amount of regained condition on each repair increases, and with this so does the maximum amount of condition you can repair, in one piece of clothing, increase. These two modifiers do not interfere.

About the socks and underwear, because they are an inside layer, the rate at which they degrade is staggeringly slow. As such it would take an obscene amount of time to ruin every single piece of socks and underwear in the map. So it’s just a matter of finding them.

I have absolutely no idea if this was ever suggested but here it goes. 
 

Right now clothing basically lasts forever, no matter how many times you get attacked by animals, you can simply repair it. I’ve never sewed anything before, but I’m pretty sure that after 100 repairs it would look like something straight out of Frankenstein.

Basically what I propose is that clothing have a limited amount of condition you can repair before ruining. This maximum amount would vary with your sewing skill, and the tier of the clothes, for example, an expedition parka would have more repairs than a ski jacket.

This would imply that, eventually, you would be forced to use animal derived clothing entirely, though this would obviously take a lot of time. Also this would promote the hoarding of clothing, as I find myself in late game not picking up looted clothes at all because I simply don’t need them.

14 hours ago, Bean said:

Instead of a pet dog, let’s have a pet cougar.  And instead of a pet cougar, let’s just have wild ravening cougars hiding in random spots around the map ready to attack and eat you!  
 

that would make TLD much more enjoyable and you’ll forget all about loneliness while fighting off cougars!

I cannot if you are joking, being serious or being sarcastic 😂.

2 hours ago, ManicManiac said:

Again, I do think it could be a really interesting addition... I'd just rather it was a dedicated challenge, rather than added to the survival sandbox. 
 

You may be right about that one. But I don’t know if it’s worth putting that much effort into one challenge... maybe adding it to wintermute, like you mentioned, would make more sense. Kinda like the bear spear.

1 hour ago, UpUpAway95 said:

As I said, it could be a toggled option.  No doubt some people would find it preferable to suiciding their character and others would choose not to use it... not everyone wants to play every single character to the point where they accidentally die... particularly if they happen to start a file that's on a difficulty level that they ultimately find too easy for them.  Alternatively, they could allow players to change/increase the difficulty of file saves as they get more comfortable with different aspects of the survival mode game.  (As I mentioned to you on another thread though - I suggested that a long time ago and it met with heavy resistance... particularly from those of take the view that changing anything outside a "standard" difficulty from start to grave is "cheating."  A commonly heard "complaint" here is that the game gets rather routing and boring after one hits a point where the character is well kitted out and their survival seems basically assured.

I can understand the point of allowing a difficulty change during a save, but for it to work it would have to have at least a couple rules, to not allow someone to, for example, change to pilgrim during a bear encounter. Things like that, but otherwise I guess it could be done.

Even then I think the complaint you mentioned still remains. I like to think animal companions would fix it at least a little, but hell maybe the devs intend the game to stay the way it is, maintaining an atmosphere of complete isolation, and that is completely fine by me, will continue playing it that’s for sure !!  

1 hour ago, Schrodingers Box said:

Give one example where raising a dog while alone in a dire survival/rescue situation was a documented benefit other than eating it. 

Guess I can’t argue with that.🤣🤣. You really want to eat the damn dog don’t you ?😂

2 hours ago, Schrodingers Box said:

the implementation is ridiculous honestly.  what do you do with the dog when you climb? Leave it at the base of your climb to freeze to death?  Return him to a shelter and start your trek back to the climb all over again?

   this is a survival game. You don’t bring pets along in survival. unless the dog is your sled dog or your backup food it’s a liability. survivalists eliminate liability. 

Why is it ridiculous ? Dogs have been used by humans for millennia for a variety of reasons including ones that help in survival situations.

2 hours ago, ManicManiac said:

This gets discussed quite a bit, and I recommend to other folks reading this to also use the search function in addition to reading this thread.  I say that only because there has been a large amount of good discussion about this very topic.  Including many more ideas on how other folks would implement such a thing.

As for me, I really don't want NPCs or animal companions (wolf, dog, or otherwise) in the survival sandbox.

I think this could work fine in the Story Mode or as a dedicated Challenge... but I would not like it if this were incorporated into Survival Mode.  I think it would undermine the lonely isolation and personal struggle that I enjoy so much in survival mode.

Another reason, is that I think that if we had an animal companion... then we might have a hunting partner, or even to a limited extent a protector.
I don't like that idea because it makes life easier for the player... and I'm rarely in favor of things that would make life easier for the player.

Let me clarify that I'm not against the idea  of an animal companion... I just really don't want it in my Survival Sandbox. 

Personally, I don't think an animal companion really works from a lore perspective anyway.  I think even if we did find a wolf or dog... it would probably immediately try to eat our faces off due to the effects the aurora (in that carnivorous animals are preternaturally aggressive and blood thirsty).  Considering they would most likely just turn hyper-aggressive, I think it puts this particular type of animal companion somewhere in between "extremely dangerous" and "just not really possible under the circumstances."

 

All your points are justified, and so are mine, it’s really just a matter of opinion to be honest. 

I made sure to not expressly state my ideas on how such a system would work, as I believe that is useless to a discussion. Though I do feel like saying that dog probably wouldn’t try to attack the survivor instantly, because they are not as wild as wolves...it would be a problem during an aurora though, which I think that would create an interesting dynamic.

1 hour ago, UpUpAway95 said:

I agree... the devs probably will not add this.  I'm just suggesting that, as an optional earned reward for a long-time run, the solo aspect of the better part of a survival run would not be affected at all by this.  Opening a special "endzone" map for retirement would merely provide an optional way for a player to choose to end a run aside from causing the character's death (e.g. jumping off TWM) or just deleting the file when they get bored with it.  People not wanting to "retire" their character could simple choose to never enter that zone after they manage to unlock it... or perhaps a toggle could be set up at the start that enables/disables that "end zone" as an option.

I guess that would give a “fitting” end to survival mode. Although I’m not sure that would be very appropriate since I think the idea of survival is that there is no end to it.

9 hours ago, Sammida said:

As cool as it would be to have a dog to help find sticks, act as defence and generally be a nice companion, it would take away from the solo aspect too much. You are on your own with naught—not even a pet—to help. Other games would do the pet-thing better.

I do not agree with this destroying the solo aspect of the game, in the end it’s just a dog, no matter how much time you spend with it, it just doesn’t compare to the company of another person. Though I do admit that I’ve started to doubt the viability of such an implementation.

4 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Sorry, it's just that I've been spending a lot of time in Ash Canyon lately.  My thought to get around it would be to have a dog given to Will and Astrid right at the end of storymode... when they're setting up there forever retirement home on Great Bear in a final zone that only unlocks at the very end of story mode.  That zone could be free of ropes.  It would be available to play on indefinitely after the story was completed... and perhaps unlocked for survival mode games only after the 500-day mark is reached.  It's not perfect, but maybe a compromise. 

Well no matter, I‘m sure that if the devs ever intend too add any sort of animal companion, which they probably don’t, they’ll think of this and find a way to get over it.

25 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Here's another thing you've not thought through with this idea... Ropes... Dogs can't climb them.  So what's going to happen to your companion in almost any zone in the game... He/she gets stranded at the bottom of a rope for days while you go looting and hunting?... Then starves to death or freeze to death sitting there like a good puppy?

Wow, I really didn’t think about that. Well , I guess in the situations that you don’t spend a lot of time in the climb zone, leaving him temporarily could be done effectively, with some risk involved. In the cases of TWM, for example, the only solution I can think of is Dr. S.’s proposal:

21 minutes ago, Dr. S. said:

The dog could be wearing a harness that could be tied to the rope and ferried up and down. 

Though that would obviously come with yet another fatigue inducing action, which is...not very nice.
 

You’ve found quite the loop hole in my dream of having dogs in TLD with goddamn climbing ropes.
Gee thanks😂.

31 minutes ago, glowing ice said:

i'm down with 1. here's how it plays out.
new map added by timberwolf mountain, you find a timberwolf cave that looks like the mother of all bears ripped it asunder. inside you find a timberwolf cub, at this point it needs nourished and kept warm like you. everyday it will grow. it should take at least 50 days min to become an adult.  and every day you can play with it and train it.  if you don't  it will become feral and might even attack you. playing with him stops this. training with him you teach him whistle commands. stay, go here, fallow, track (using an item for scent). attack.   before the 50 days he will loosely follow commands, or outright ignore you.  after adulthood he will kill rabbits and deer himself while roaming, feeding him will no longer be a factor.  telling him to attack a bear/moose, if you let him do it by himself he will die, you will have to still shoot the bear/moose to kill it. and you'll have to make sure your aim is true or else you'll kill your friend. telling him to attack just prevents them from charging you. 

I consider the pup idea impractical because it would just be too much of a pain to play with, and too implement. A 50 day growth time is just too unrealistic, and even if we are being realistic, it would take at least a year for a pup to grow to adulthood. Can you imagine having to babysit something for an entire in game year ? It would be boring as hell. And then the wolf problem, lorewise, I guess you could push it and say that because you’ve trained it won’t attack you, that sounds a little sketchy tho. Another problem is balancing, following in game logic, if you had a wolf friend, hunting rabbits and deer would be completely free, as for wolves they would probably become either a non-threat or a very small one. These two outcomes are unacceptable. I can understand that the thought of nurturing and training a wolf sounds cool, but it just doesn’t work, not with this game.

2 hours ago, Bean said:

I like the Quonset hut in PCH even with all the wolves.  It’s just so nice and perfect and roomy with access to anything you’d ever need.  
I usually pack most of the important gear there and stash it in the lockers and tool chests.  However I do leave rifles and maybe a hatchet at every decent base and then just take some ammo along on any expedition.  Every base has cooked meat and hides.  
idk 

It is easy to pass time once all that is done but it’s super boring and I never seem to have the initiative to go beyond 300 days.  Everything is done by then.  I just imagine my survivor taking over for me then and living out his days in peace and solitude. 

Yeah...I’m sure that with certain updates the game will give you more and more reasons to survive longer and longer