Chaos Theory

On 9/13/2023 at 11:44 PM, Enigmaecho said:

“By the time The Long Dark is finished” is the saddest words I’ll ever see written from you Raph. I don’t want it to end 😔

I’d like to see more paid content in the future that gets the money that it’s worth. Personally I feel that I would have paid $75-$100 for the new update that only cost $20. I feel that each single portion of this update would have been worth $20+ with the amount of time many players spend engaged in the game. 

I’m on vacation and rarely looking at my emails, so wasn’t this like an early Christmas present. I read it twice to fully absorb the news. Thanks Hinterland, I can’t wait to see what the next step in journey is. 

Did this community ever thrive on a platform like discord? I’ve used that in another game I played for about a decade and the there was a vibrant discord community. Regardless, keeping folks in one place is ideal but I understand the point of the thread. I personally don’t use Reddit and have never heard of Lemmy. 

17 hours ago, rbos said:

Hi!

I wanted to point out that there's a Long Dark community on Lemmy, as an alternative to the Reddit forum that already exists, which I moderate (am willing to take on new moderators as it scales up). Over 50 subscribers so far!

As Reddit works toward its public IPO, it has become increasingly enshittified, locking out features from users and trying to lock people in more and more. Lemmy is a federated system based on ActivityPub (meaning that anyone can start a server) that aims to replace it, or at least act as a backup for when Reddit finally goes the way of MySpace, LiveJournal, AOL, and all those that came before.

Cheers!

Why use Reddit or Lemmy when we have a robust community here? It seems that pointing folks to Lemmy would simply divide people and dilute the opportunities for hearty discourse. 

4 hours ago, James Hickok said:

Falling off wooden railroad bridge in ravine - Check 

Falling off climbing rope (forgot i had  prison vest on) - Check

Burned in fireplace -Check

😆😆😆😆

Burned in a fireplace. Holy cow… self-immolation. That’s a brutal one.

🔥🔥🔥

4 hours ago, James Hickok said:

Falling off wooden railroad bridge in ravine - Check 

Falling off climbing rope (forgot i had  prison vest on) - Check

Burned in fireplace -Check

😆😆😆😆

One of my stupidest deaths was falling too. On the Coastal/Mystery railroad crossing. I refuse to even use that crossing now and will spend a couple days going around the long way instead. PTSD. 

I sucked up my pride and me bribed this in another thread recently, but I’ll take the walk of shame again. I was about 100 days in on Stalker. I was locked and loaded, feared nothing, and had just gone to the top of Timberwolf just for kicks, didn’t even really need the gear. When I got to the top I went to cave to sleep, and I think it was just overconfidence, and probably the edibles I consumed in RL (legal here in Boston), but when I went to sleep I selected 12 hours without thinking. The moment I went to sleep I realized my mistake and froze to death, fading into the long dark. My mouth dropped to the floor. I had to take a week off from playing as I just kept rehashing the event in my head. 

If you go to lodge, there’s a beautiful area to explore up behind it, stunning views. 

On 8/19/2023 at 4:48 AM, Nalliah said:

Thanks for the sunrise tip! Sure is beautiful in that part of the Basin! Milton Basin is a nice area for a Pilgrim player like me who wants some very manageable outdoor living challenges. Turns out the fishing in the Basin is OK! And cave living with a bedroll very do-able!  I have tip toed into the Forlorn Muskeg, but it looks grim and like there is not much to see or do that would be different than the Basin.

Forlorn Muskeg is like coffee, an acquired taste. But, once you get used to is it really is a place of great beauty. There’s a transition cave that makes a really solid shelter, and of course a forge which is wonderful because the shelter won’t bring on cabin fever. The wolves by the forge can suck, idk if it’s just me, but it seems like there’s more wolves by the forge since the update. But, SPOLIER, you can shoot them through the cracks in wall, though I never seem to be able to recover my arrows when I do that. Anyway, overall, it is a great place! I even spent days just sleeping next to a rock the signal transmitter. 

My first bear hunting practice was Trapper’s Cabin and I went on the ledge outside the cabin, threw rocks to get the bear’s attention, then shot the dude in the face. 
 

Now I’ve graduated, and I usually use a single arrow from a distance, wait a day, or go gather fuel for the bbq if I’m not stocked, and then do a search and recovery. 

15 hours ago, bysinda said:

But what if you don't have a sleeping roll and this is the only place you can crash for the night? 😁 

I always roll with my roll. But, like the best of us, the roll has been forgotten. If that happens, I’m corpse spooning. 

I do wish that wolf and bear recipes existed, although maybe they do and I just didn’t come across them yet. 

On 8/20/2023 at 1:09 PM, itsLydt said:

I have put about 100 hours in the game, interested in attempting interloper but it feels futile due to my incompetence in dealing with the gosh darn wolves. You'd think I would be getting better, but in my current game I have had more wolf struggles than in my other games combined. 

My current game is the challenge where you have to store a bunch of supplies in the garage in coastal highway. There is an abundance of wolves in this area it seems, and I can't for the live of me evade them. 

First complaint/issue: decoys seem useless or I have no idea how to utilize them properly. I was carrying some meat and guts etc, and see a wolf start trotting over from the ice. No big deal I think, I will simply drop a decoy and keep moving. So I drop a piece of fish using the hotkey, climb over a snow bank to stay out of sight, and keep on towards my destination. My thinking was that the wolf will stop to eat the meat and the placement of the decoy will prevent the wolf from seeing me, so I will be safe at least temporarily. No dice; the wolf trots over the snow bank right past my decoy and attempts to eat my face. Awesome. I fight off the wolf and retrieve my fish. 

I had many, many wolf fights since then, but this is the next relevant one: fire/torches even failed me. I thought that so long as you had a torch, you were safe from wolves! Apparently not. I was returning from a fishing spot near the garage, and had a torch with plenty of life left. There happened to be three wolves near enough to smell me, so they started stalking me while I tried to cross the street. I wasn't worried because of my torch! But then I noticed one of the wolves was getting closer than I expected...and charged me. Face eaten.

Luckily the other two wolves were right there still so I wasn't safe. I picked up my torch and limped over to the garage. I wanted to cook the fish I had caught, and was under the impression that starting a campfire would hold off wolves, so I put my back against the door and tried to make one. Cue my second wolf struggles in 2 minutes. At this point I was close to death and mad, so I went inside to evade the 3rd wolf.... temporarily.

I fixed myself up and slept off my wolf bites, and once I had restored most of my condition I attempted to cook my fish again. I made a campfire against the wall of the garage, and set my fish up. Finally. But I needed a couple sticks, so I walked a couple feet away from the fire and immediately heard the bark of the last wolf. No big deal, I'll just return back to the fire for a second. So I went back to my campfire and watched the 3rd wolf trot around the corner of the building, see me again, and do something I thought impossible. It jumped over my cooking fish and attempted to, you guessed it, eat my face. 

What. The. Heck. At this point I am spitting mad. Have the wolf mechanics changed? I took a break after part one of tales, and just started playing again to try out the frontier comforts update. Am I super unlucky? Or am I just terrible at the game? 😆 Suggestions/advice welcome! Thanks for reading.

I’ve found it really depends primarily on your scent. The Fandom wiki has good info on this topic. If your scent is three bars, even if you drop a decoy, the wolf will usually still follow. Many times if I’m ferrying meat, I keep an eye on the bars as I’m loading up and only let it go to the max of the second meter. 

I’m curious about decay affecting decoys as well. Perhaps fresh guys work better? I only use fresh guts as decoys as I’ve had bad results with other baits. 
 

Finally, I’ve found it’s important to properly bait the wolf. Drop it from a distance and then lure the wolf in a straight line towards the fresh gut. 

On 8/22/2023 at 10:43 AM, bysinda said:

Things that are still messed up but you played so much, you don't even consider it anymore

I'll start

Snoozing next to a corps. 

 

No way, I just don’t. 😂

I don’t even like having my sleeping roll nearby. In caves with a corpse, I move as far away as possible. I’ve always wished you could move corpses out of caves and buildings. 

I often think the same. Such a beautiful concept brought to life. I’ve been gaming for forty-four years and TLD is truly one of the best. The fact that you don’t get second chances makes it stand out as a gamer’s game. Thanks you 

For the last year, it’s all I play. Prior, I was mostly a COD player, though I played a couple other games as well. I’m hooked, and I selected crusader because I do tell other gamers about what lovable madness it is. On the other hand, I do usually take about a week off and sweat off the game “forever” when I die after a long run. 

Such a fun run. After becoming an apex predator and having my way with Great Bear Island, I became bored and deiced to go hit Timberwolf Mountain. Reaching the top with no  map help was exhilarating,  my Survivor was stacked... no stopping him. When I reached the summit, I needed rest, and without thinking slept for 12 hours, something I never do outdoors. BAM, dead. So brutal. 

I know other survivors out there must go through agony when they commit stupid simple mistakes after one of their best games ever. It hurts. 

Quonset in Coastal Highway was also one of my first. Now one of my favorites is Mountaineer's Hut on Timberwolf Mountain, although the area is brutal with limited resources for making repairs. I also love Island Cottage in Forsaken Airfield, but without a workbench, I've found that my time there often hits a limit. 

On 7/20/2022 at 5:25 PM, hozz1235 said:

When you really need something, all containers are empty - opposite true.

So true, one time I desperately needed antibiotics and couldn't find any in the whole Forsaken Airfield area. By the time I got some reishi mushrooms, a wolf attacked me while I was harvesting them, and that was that. 

I've never had an accidental discharge, but I don't often walk with the gun out. I do hate the risk of falling.

One of my best runs ever was ended by falling off the rail in the Coastal/Mystery transition zone. I sat for five minutes after falling and just stared at the screen in disbelief. Not really a gripe, but I sure get nervous now with some of those crossings. 

On 8/4/2023 at 9:28 PM, Retro Seamstress said:

I was recently playing tag with the bear near Trapper's Cabin on my new interloper run. I hadn't got level 5 archery yet and I'm a chicken so I was shooting from outside the cabin then running inside. I noticed that often I'd get a hit (the little archery symbol popped up and my stats counted a hit) and the bear would either charge or run away, but when I looked on the ground later there would be an arrow there where I'd hit the bear ( I only had 3 arrows so I knew it wasn't one of my missed shots). After several days of multiple hits like this the bear just wasn't bleeding out. Then I managed to get a "good" hit where the arrow stayed in the bear. When it next appeared it was limping. I then managed to get a head shot that killed it. Did make me wonder if there are shots that are counted as "hits" (in terms of your stats) but don't actually do damage. 

I'm now at level 4 archery and yesterday I managed to kill the DP bear with a single head shot so I'm pretty chuffed about that. 

Instead of running into the cabin, you can go on to the other side of the fence that is just outside the door of the Trapper's Cabin. There is a small ledge to stand on. Although the bear comes right up to the fence and is directly in your face, the bear cannot harm you. I often use this spot to hunt the bear in the that area. I've read mixed reviews about multiple hits speeding up the bleed out. I usually just do one bow shot and wait it out. 

Quick download and I’m back to surviving. Three cheers to Hinterland! I’m only an hour in and already loving the improvements. Keep up the great work! 
 

Now, back to taming that wolf… 🐺 

1 hour ago, SuperStriker16 said:

Good for you Pyroxene! @Renn@ManicManiac@Chaos Theory@hozz1235@Jotunheim@chrislacruz@Leeanda Anyone else got luck with the dlc?

I’ve got a 16 GB update on Xbox downloading. 

8 minutes ago, chrislacruz said:

Dang…. Lol stoking some jealousy over here. 🤣

8 minutes ago, SuperStriker16 said:

Good for you Pyroxene! @Renn@ManicManiac@Chaos Theory@hozz1235@Jotunheim@chrislacruz@Leeanda Anyone else got luck with the dlc?

Not yet, perhaps it’s showing up in the PlayStation store first. I’m XBox in the the U.S. Waiting… one last flare as these wolves stalk me.