Syraith

@jeffpeng I think I’m the opposite of the privilege you describe lol A person has the right to do anything they want. But there are consequences one way or the other for doing any act. In the terms of TLD, a person does have the right to play how they want. Be it giving themselves objectives beyond what is designed in the game or modifying it in any way. As Hinterlands mentioned though, they do not offer any support for modified versions of their game currently, so doing anything to the games system runs that risk. But you still have the right to do so. And (as you say) it’s debatable for a developer to make their game open to modifications, I’d say absolutely not. They provide a product. If it’s not in the user agreement that you enter into by paying for that service, they are not responsible in any way, shape or form to offer anything beyond that agreement. You choose to pay for the service presented, if you don’t like the terms, then don’t do it. In the end, games are just LEASE agreements not sales, the developer or medium that you purchased through has the right to remove that access at any time technically, you don’t own any part of it. And there is no majority of a history of developers to allow that kind of access. If anything, the exact opposite. Rarely does a developer allow/support game mods, the fact that Hinterlands is taking the time to work on that, especially being as small as they are, in my opinion is very surprising.

@jeffpeng my exact thoughts. Obviously they are working on making mods available as mentioned, but I have the same fear. At least TLD has been out a while and has a strong following but my fear would be that a new player would buy it, and start adding mods right away. With the game so well balanced how it is, as awesome as lighting modifications for example would be, how they would effect the weather elements for example (ie visibility in fog/blizzard) is unknown. Or other changes like modifying damage or behaviors. I get that people want to play how they want, and I agree that is their right 100%. But this is a beautiful game as it is. I’d hate for someone to miss that experience because they read how much “better” it is after adding mods. Just my personal view.

^^ I’ve never hunted a moose, I just keep walking, think I see a deer, then turn around and hide when it grunts at me.

@The Orange Birbim kind of at that point. I’ve wandered around so much that I’m fairly familiar with anywhere I want to go. If I do get lost it’s usually in a random spot that unless I’ve taken the time to wander and mark up an area specifically for that reason, I just find high ground or just not go out in a blizzard. @UTC-10I hadn’t thought about story mode. Especially if the prison is the next chapter there likely will be a number of redundant areas that marking will help with. And like @hozz1235, I have a system with cars/trucks. Open hood if battery is taken, open visors if I’ve looted it. Strangely I have yet to go to HRV yet. That may be an area I do paint the town so to speak though. I haven’t read up much outside of knowing about the ice caves, the size of the region and the amount of nature you experience 😁 Thanks to all! I definitely have a few ideas now.

@opllii understand that, but when you look at games like Elder Scrolls or Minecraft, the developers openly release their development kits to the public for the reason of modding. Not every company wants to see people open up and tear into their game. It’s just a slippery slope. Yes, mechanical upgrades like lighting and such could be nice but when you open that access, anything else is possible. Sometimes developers just want their vision to be left intact the way they release it so people experience it how they are intended to. It’s not an expectation to put on a developer, otherwise almost every game would get open treatment like that. I don’t see a problem with letting the developer control the user experience.

@Serenityok thanks. I’m not alone then. Yeah, I don’t ever use the map so I guess I’m not missing much. I’ve gotten to using empty tin cans to mark frequent travel routs so most of the time that works. Maybe I can collect them and drop them as backup markers then 😁

So I have had maybe 3 rounds of 100 days +, one voyager and 2 stalker. I find spray paint all over and have tagged a building once just to see how it works, but otherwise, I never even grab it when I see it. Is there some mechanic I’m missing? Everyone seems to covet paint more than ammo sometimes it feels like. I have a good system of transferring between regions, I don’t get lost in caves/mines, is there something more and mysterious I’m missing with the round cans of liquid mischief?

Unity is fully capable of high definition textures and such. They just chose to go with the artistic design that’s presented. Expectations of the developer, not limitations of the engine.

Before I knew about sleeping in places without a bed/bedroll (IE cars) as I didn’t know the optioned appeared in those places in the wheel, I got trampled by a moose in AC, wandered to TWM on zero sleep as I lost my roll. Couldn’t continue on down the rope with busted ribs so thought about the snow shelter. Made one, got in and looked for the “bed” to click and rest but saw nothing. Frustrated, I get out, try to goat down the rope cliff and die the second I step off. Was my first run, felt stupid I hadn’t looked into that mechanic. I think it was only when I saw a post here about sleeping in cars I looked into it 🙄

@IamSameerthose moments kill me. When you’re so close but just can’t find the right way. I got stuck just north of there looking for the little cabin. Somehow circled around so many times I ended up back at the hunters blind I can’t say how many times. Mystery Lake seems to always do that to me. So many areas of little hills and tree spots. I always do the same thing going from trappers to the office. I aim a little more left every time but somehow always end up at the tunnel to FM lol

Epic journey! Makes me want to do my first interloper run soon 😁

I don’t see this as a viable option. Maybe in pure desperation but when you kill an animal, the bullet is usually somewhere in the organs (unless you hit in a meatier area like the thighs for example, but in that case, you likely did not achieve a kill shot so that animal just has a pain for the rest of its life) and not the meatier areas. Needle in a haystack comes to mind. And without a HUGE amount of luck, digging through all that mess trying to find small shards of lead is just impractical. Short of something like a buckshot on a rabbit, I just don’t see it happening. You may come across bone fragments of the same size that will distract, or even (depending where it’s hit) fragments of a previous meal that would have to be inspected. Or , depending on where you hit, or how close you were, it might have gone through. So is there also a request to dig out lead from a tree? I think this level of survival realism/desperation is a little too far.

Yea and no. I would love to see some visual upgrades for things like lighting that the public could do, but when you open that soon, next thing you know you see people hunting bears with M16s and laser rifles, moose replaced by Thomas the tank engine, and zombies running around. I think sometimes it’s just best to let a game stay true to the vision. The mechanics built in work. They may not be perfect but they make the game work the way it does.

Actually... now that you mention it @odizzido... it may be because the player’s body object is tied to the camera. You get in a vehicle and face forward, the limitations of not being able to turn around may be linked to that lol It also may be because the want you to have to get into the back seat to see the tasty loot they hide back there 😋

Yes and no. There are a number of built in movement/binding systems in unity. Mouse look and horizontal are pre-programmed for easy coding. I’ve never tried writing my own movement code with the mouse, and although possible, could be troublesome. But I don’t have enough experience on that front to form an opinion beyond that. Only other concern would be some hidden elements in games are tied to a players direction of movement, sound and how it’s interpreted (the visual is just a camera but a physics body is made for the player body to interact with the world) so sound would need to be linked to the camera for proper accuracy. IE, of your body is looking ahead but head is turned right, wolf is growling ahead of you so the sound needs to be coming from the left, not on center. Some npcs might interact differently depending on which direction you’re facing, head turning could change that. long story short, there are actually potentially a lot of issues with what seems to be a simple visual change, being that very few games utilize this in the FPS genre, I’m guessing there is a lot to it.

@Stinky sockskind of like your adrenaline rush, stalker run, walking out the back of Quonset Garage after just getting into CH and settling in, face to face with a moose. Well about 10 meters away. Never seen him in any run before. Pulled my rifle quick and got a head shot in just as his head was coming up to charge. Lucky find! I was set for food already! Walked up to build a fire and start cutting him up when I hear a growl... that same stupid bear had wandered down the road already and was looking right at me. He got up on his back legs and while growling at me I popped a shot off and got him enough to send him running. Stunned from the shock of the last 30 seconds I paused. Regained my senses and followed the blood trail. Found the big guy by the trailer. Was probably the most intense and scary moment I have had to date playing.

Nicely done and written! I was going to say, it’s not the best or wolves, it’s the moose in AC that get you. After getting out of the gold mine and going down the double rope climb, that chance for a moose down there scares the crap out of me. It’s narrow, and he’s usually pretty angry. Gotten me a couple times. You can at least get out of AC with broken ribs from there but not a whole lot further. Good luck!

This is a lot more difficult than you might think. You are talking about spending what would be an enormous amount of time to “correct” the logic of the verbal cues that probably occur more infrequently than almost anything in the game. They are there as helpful cues that you are in need of focusing on a specific condition. To your point, why say “I could lay down anywhere” when you have a bedroll in your inventory? To program a task like that would really only be worth it at the beginning of development. You’d need to give every sleeping surface a “bed” layer, every enclosure a “building” layer, etc, so you’d have the ability to either use ray tracing or distance to object code. But you’d have to also add in code for obstructions (visibility in blizzards), other line of sight issues, and so on. There is so much that would need to be worked on and it simply isn’t a feasible task this late in development unless the REALLY want that kind of realism, and there are a hundred other tasks I think could be done before this.

@Stinky socksahh. I play on the metric system, didn’t notice the lb increase 😋

Ash Canyon is a beautiful region with plenty of challenges. The biggest benefit is the crampons and backpack in the gold mine. I’ve just taken to starting in AC on new games because like in your situation, getting them this late is kind of eh in my opinion. Nice but not needed. There are many areas which man made structures you could settle into for a good experience though. It’s a beautiful region. HRV I see as purely TLD experience. As mentioned, it’s desolate but VERY large compared to other regions. Lots of fun to just wander in and just experience the game purely based on wilderness survival. Both are well worth exploring but for different reasons.

I would love to see ray tracing added. I still remember when they added the update to the steam engine way back when for half-life 2 and just how much it can change the atmosphere of a game. Would love to see a sunrise on the horizon as a slight snowfall begins to drop. Or looking over the water in CH.

I do like that idea! “I saw a flare go up in the ... region last night. Maybe there’s someone else out there!” or, Pair was traveling together and attacked by bear. Player was mauled and looked dead. Player regains consciousness injured and alone. “Must have thought I was a goner. We were heading toward ..., they must have gone that way!” Have med supplies to heal enough, torn clothing, little else. Spawn player in random region. Let the search begin!

You get the larger map drawing area from finding the scenic view spots and mapping them, but I agree, just a tiny circle just doesn’t seem helpful/logical. Bonuses for elevation or line of sight would be helpful. Maybe vague outlines of further areas you can get more detail if you map from another perspective and that kind of thing.

Easy in concept and inception, but really only in the initial making of the game. Setting a slippery surface physic on a surface is easy but you would have to have someone go through the entire game, remap the surface of every high angle edge, AND add in the new code for how sliding effects the chances for in game mechanics like sprains, torn clothing, etc. A great feature for sure to add realism to the game but I don’t see it being something that would happen in this version. One of those things for TLD 2 😁 I just imagine the player on all fours crawling up those intense angles for more stability, obviously it’s not animated like that, but in my head it works.

I agree with @manolitode, I think just finding new challenges and like @AdamvRmentions just, live is kind of the point. And it’s done well. Make a challenge for yourself, survive for 30 days in Ash Canyon, only use animal fur clothing, only use the first tool you find of that tool and maintain it, if it breaks it’s done. there are a bunch of ways to make what’s there better, you don’t always need the developers to hold your hand. In a sequel I would love to just expand what they’ve got though and I would like craftable items that take more time to craft. Either for accessing other regions or just to improve other tools. Or just more parts that may require more exploring/searching to find. A demolition kit to open a collapsed path, repair a generator so a lift works during the aurora which requires a specific skill level as well, things of that nature. Scope for the rifle not just for hunting but spotting from higher elevations. More options for the same tool. Candles, thermos, for example. More craftable clothing options. Like using animal furs to improve existing clothing for stats to reduce having two items. Or giving you more protection to access more dangerous areas. Just to name a few 😶