Perfecting Cabin Fever (With a Minor Tweak) — Next Patch?

[stratvox]

I have an idea that might be able to tweak cabin fever. I was thinking about this last night. The idea is dreaming, and their ability to wake you up. Cabin fever could be recast as a likelihood of having a nightmare that wakes you up, and interrupts your rest/recover cycle. Given that condition recovery is weighted towards long sleeps, this could be very effective. So, as you spend too much time indoors you end up with a higher likelihood of having a nightmare (say, you're looking at the black screen of sleep, and suddenly you have the wolf leap or bear maul animation, or maybe a fall off a cliff) and then you wake up. Very low likelihood of happening, but if you're sitting idle (even weighting this by the nature of activity indoors would be a good idea... so crafting a wolf skin coat contributes a much lower likelihood than just standing there passing time) indoors then the likelihood of nightmares goes up. 

This would make hibernation play style dead... if it's at the point where you're starting awake every hour or two you'll never recover that condition and you'll die. If you're mildly afflicted you'll be waking up every three or four hours. This will mess with your fatigue meter and create problems for the player going forward (hitting exhaustion at inconvenient times can be a killer). If you're out and about all the time, you'll never have any real problems (say a nightmare every week or so) and you'll end up just fine.

Could add some good art opportunities too... create dreamscapes to fill in that black sleeping screen, and then every once in a while boom wolfshot and you wake up. Hazy memories of life before the fall, northern lights playing across the screen without a background, things like that.

[KinoUnko]

1 hour ago, stratvox said:

Could add some good art opportunities too... create dreamscapes to fill in that black sleeping screen, and then every once in a while boom wolfshot and you wake up. Hazy memories of life before the fall, northern lights playing across the screen without a background, things like that.

Another brilliant idea. Community art contest? nudge nudge wink wink

[LucidFugue]

Love the idea of arty skeeo/wake transitions. 

[cekivi]

On ‎2017‎-‎11‎-‎11 at 0:07 AM, JAFO said:

But then too, nomadic players generally don't try for for extended long-term games, either.

I'd agree with that. I usually play with a goal (get an achievement, map all the maps, craft something) and once I've accomplished that and reached a point where I'm self sustaining (I normally play Stalker these days) I'll start a new game. As a consequence my average game rarely lasts over a 100 days now. Simply because I can't be bothered with the monotony of long term play. 

[cekivi]

Welcome to the forums @J.P.

 

[cekivi]

On the actual topic I've always been a fan (and long time proponent of) not restricting the ability to sleep when afflicted with Cabin Fever because it seems so artificial. Instead it should be the gradual reduction of condition recovery to the point where you can't recover at all. 

For instance, with "mild" cabin fever condition recovery is cut in half. With "severe" cabin fever you cannot recover at all. 

[Hadrian]

@stratvox Adding a dreaming mechanic the way you described it would be incredible. One of the most fitting suggestions from an atmosphere standpoint that I've read in a long time. Can you imagine the increase in immersion, particularly once Cabin Fever was integrated with the dreaming mechanics and you started to see hints of psychological changes (maybe even other future psychological states like @Raphael van Lierop has teased in the past?) manifest in the dreams.

One thing that excites me about this is that nothing helps fix shallow mechanics such as CF like deepening the surrounding systems to create more robust options to address the problem. Another thing is that, art design aside, I can't imagine this would be terribly complicated to add to the game. Certainly more complicated suggestions have been made.

Plus, the idea of leveraging the community to help create some of the dreamscapes is nothing short of genius, @KinoUnko.

-H

[Fuarian]

On 11/9/2017 at 9:38 PM, Raphael van Lierop said:

Great stuff. This is the kind of thoughtful, mature discussion that I like to see.

Just to set expectations -- we're far into the December update work and Cabin Fever tweaks are not on the list, but it's something we could possibly look at for the next Survival Mode update.

THAT right there is what I want. "Just to set expectations." 

It's an approach that involves direct interaction between Hinterland and the community. It's not as loose-ended as simply not interacting at all in hopes to avoid misleading expectations being developed. Instead it directly gives us an idea of what to expect. Much more solid and effective. 

[Wade]

When are they going to catch on and allow adjustable difficulty settings?  It would solve the problem with cabin fever and other afflictions for many people.

[cekivi]

19 hours ago, Wade said:

When are they going to catch on and allow adjustable difficulty settings?  It would solve the problem with cabin fever and other afflictions for many people.

Variable difficulty is a well known requested feature but, for the moment, the dev team has chosen to focus development on their chosen experience modes. Hopefully, it will be a feature added in the future. 

[Hadrian]

*nonchalant post-update bump*

-H

[TerribleSurvivor]

@Hadrian I would take this idea and implement it into the game based on your concept 101! Sounds absolutly well designed!

[Riotintheair]

I think I'd make it about different locations visited or time outdoors. So you wouldn't get cabin fever if you've visited enough unique locations in the last 6 days or been outside enough in the last 6 days. Then you could fight cabin fever by visiting a new location, rather than sleeping outside.

[Hadrian]

*non-chalant post-2018 bump*

(Pretty pretty plz, @Raphael van Lierop... <3<3<3)

-H

[Sherri]

2020 bump.

[ajb1978]

Kind of echoing what has been said earlier, flat-out disallowing sleep when you have cabin fever I think is the wrong solution to the problem.  It's easy to avoid sure, but it's a huge nuisance.   I'd say eliminating condition recovery from sleep (you would still get your passive 1%/hour back), as well as disallowing the passage of time would be perfect.  Performing some activity like reading or crafting should be the only way you can pass time indoors with cabin fever, kind of echoing how we've all been staying sane while under quarantine.  We aren't just playing endless games of solitare over and over, we're learning new skills, reading books, playing games, etc.  Treating cabin fever almost as severely as dysentery is too extreme IMO.  (i.e. fatal if untreated)

[peteloud]

One way to minimise cabin fever is to step outside the cabin for ordinary tasks.  Whenever you repair anything, do it outside, cook outside. If you are just killing time, hang around outside on the side of the cabin that is shaltered from the wind.   If you have slept and are fully rested with still a few hours of night to go, and it is a quiet night, then get up, go outside and boil some water or cook some meat.

[WillemD]

I think the whole cabin fever mechanic works fine, except for one thing. I would like the opportunity to pass time inside (not sleep, just pass time). I mean, I can pass time inside by simply letting the game run and watching TV or reading a book. But this is kinda silly.

You don't get any benefit from passing time, no recovering stamina or health, so it doesn't affect the balance of the game. I would rather call it a quality of life improvement.

[odizzido]

On 5/7/2020 at 6:21 PM, ajb1978 said:

 I'd say eliminating condition recovery from sleep (you would still get your passive 1%/hour back), as well as disallowing the passage of time would be perfect.

I only mention this because I wouldn't mind enabling cabin fever at some point, but I already play without sleep condition recovery. On a personal level if something else could be thought of that would be cool. I really would like to turn it on.

[Azdrawee]

I really like your suggestions, Hadrian. If Hinterland has their own ideas how to improve it that's fine, I don't think they have to implement this exactly, but just do something with it, please. Cabin Fever is a terrible and frustrating mechanic and honestly, I'd say it's the worst thing about The Long Dark as a whole.

[Ghurcb]

(bringing this suggestion back, since cabin fever still hasn't been updated) 

[Ghurcb]

BTW, here's my addition.

When you have cabin fever a haunting melody should play indoors (even more haunting than the rest of survival OST). It could even randomly incorporate footsteps, knocking on glass, or faint voices. Basically, I want it to make everyone feel like they are playing a horror game. 

This would really put players into the shoes of their character. 

[Pablo_Loko]

In my opinion, it's better to leave everything as it is. An additional incentive to go somewhere and do something, rather than sitting in one place and dismantling stools. Is it really so difficult to run to the nearest cave to read books, and in extreme cases to put a shelter made of sticks and cloth next to the building? You will get the Snow Wanderer feat faster.

[Ghurcb]

4 hours ago, Pablo_Loko said:

In my opinion, it's better to leave everything as it is. An additional incentive to go somewhere and do something, rather than sitting in one place and dismantling stools. Is it really so difficult to run to the nearest cave to read books, and in extreme cases to put a shelter made of sticks and cloth next to the building? You will get the Snow Wanderer feat faster.

No one asks for the affliction to be removed, though. Just changed, in a way that will make it more interesting. 

Right now, cabin fever simply prevents you from sleeping indoors. Not only does it make little sence from the perspective of realism, it's also bad game design.

People here don't whine about how hard it is to "run to the nearest cave" and tell Hinterland to remove cabin fever. They have proposed quite a few ways to make this feature less annoying, but still incentivizing to "go somewhere and do something".

BTW, there's a difference between incentivizing something and forcing people to do this. Currently, cabin fever forces players out of their shelters by preventing them from sleeping. In TLD, if you don't sleep, you die, so there's not much choice.

 

This idea, on the other hand, gives a player the agency, the ability to choose whether they stay inside a little longer but still face the consequences, or go outside and remove the affliction.

On 11/8/2017 at 8:23 PM, Hadrian said:

2. Cabin Fever should, however, prevent players from recovering any condition (0-100%)  indoors. So, you can rest inside all you want. You can recover from exhaustion and afflictions such as sprains, food poisoning, etc., but if your actual condition is below 100, you won't be able to actually recover if you're resting inside, because you have those Cabin Fever jitters. While Cabin Fever should never have a persistent condition drop effect (it does not now; I'm just saying keep it that way), restricting condition gain while indoors would preserve the spirit of Cabin Fever and prevent players from exploiting the ability to perpetually rest indoors without a major restriction on gameplay mechanics (just not as major as not being allowed to close your eyes at all!)

Edited April 7, 2022 by Ghurcb

[Pablo_Loko]

I agree, not bad. But I would limit the possibility of restoring the fatigue scale to a maximum of 25% in 12 hours of sleep. And I would add 5%, depending on the difficulty level. This is more than enough to not die!