The Long Dark updated to v1.33 [37608] — VIGILANT FLAME

[psychomuffin]

I'm really trying to like it, but after slaughtering a wolf, and spending a whole day to get just cooking and eating all of it to go from an empty stomach to a half stomach is really disappointing. I feel I am spending (and I am not alone in this, there are other comments) a ton of time in front of a stove, without gaining that much. And sure, other users say you can spend it on so many other things. But it's doesn't take long to go through all your books, do all your sewing, and do all your sharpening, etc before you're twiddling your thumbs again. Plus with 90 min cooking times with activities that don't really fit in smaller increments, it is really hard to spend all the time well (time the devs said we can do other stuff). Instead, we're on a pretty short leash from the stove. All I'm saying is this game just increased dramatically in the cooking simulator arena, when before I could spending so much more time exploring, hunting, gathering, and traversing, which is what made TLD great. I don't want to spend 75% of the game planning my next meal.

[atomic]

47 minutes ago, psychomuffin said:

 I feel I am spending (and I am not alone in this, there are other comments) a ton of time in front of a stove, without gaining that much.

You still have the option to fast-forward time until the food/water is perfectly ready, you don't need to sit and wait until it's done.

What I like is, you can make a fire inside a hut, start cooking something and then take a torch go outside make another fire and cook there too. The other way around is even better if you have a magnifying glass.  I haven't got the feeling that it took me longer than before to cook a whole deer.

[nicko]

Also while waiting for food to cook, go outside and gather sticks. On your return you can stoke up the fire if needed. Also if you plan to hunt and cook stock pile try to find a building that may have a larger cooking stove such as this one in Milton town. You can cook steaks directly on the hot plates, though you will need pots or cans to boil water. Below I can cook 6kg in just over an hour. Maybe each main building needs a stove with min. 4 hot plates.

[psychomuffin]

20 minutes ago, atomic said:

You still have the option to fast-forward... What I like is, you can make a fire inside a hut, start cooking something and then take a torch go outside make another fire and cook there too. 

 

6 minutes ago, nicko said:

Also while waiting for food to cook, go outside and gather sticks. ... larger cooking stove such as this one in Milton town. 

 

I do fastforward, spending thirst, hunger, and fatigue, negating the times savings proposed by devs. Building a second fire means more firewood needed, also more micromanagement of cooking (again, I don't see TLD as a cooking sim) and if the thing that makes this work is finding a 6 burner stove, then I don't really want to play a game which encourages you to stay around certain stoves because others are inferiorly inefficient (yes, I made up that adjective, seemed appropriate). 

Again, all of this makes more attention needed on cooking and managing food, which takes away from the rest of the game. Is food micromanagement what made TLD a great game? I'd argue no, the scenery, exploration, sounds, visuals, occasional camping and cooking, foraging, savaging, and balanced dynamic of multiple survival aspects not anchored to where 6 burner stoves is what made this a great game. 

Remember, in the previous update, all cooking was the same, the only difference being is if wind could put out your campfire in exposed areas (annoying, but understandable). It allowed you to cook your food, and get on with playing the rest of the game.

[nicko]

5 minutes ago, psychomuffin said:

 

I do fastforward, spending thirst, hunger, and fatigue, negating the times savings proposed by devs. Building a second fire means more firewood needed, also more micromanagement of cooking (again, I don't see TLD as a cooking sim) and if the thing that makes this work is finding a 6 burner stove, then I don't really want to play a game which encourages you to stay around certain stoves because others are inferiorly inefficient (yes, I made up that adjective, seemed appropriate). 

Again, all of this makes more attention needed on cooking and managing food, which takes away from the rest of the game. Is food micromanagement what made TLD a great game? I'd argue no, the scenery, exploration, sounds, visuals, occasional camping and cooking, foraging, savaging, and balanced dynamic of multiple survival aspects not anchored to where 6 burner stoves is what made this a great game. 

Remember, in the previous update, all cooking was the same, the only difference being is if wind could put out your campfire in exposed areas (annoying, but understandable). It allowed you to cook your food, and get on with playing the rest of the game.

well I think if your just running around the mountains without planning any type of food / cooking you might be in trouble. Alternative is you just get any food you can find to eat when you find such food as cans of beans, chocolate bars etc etc. plenty of those natural sticks near rivers as well if you get hungry

[psychomuffin]

5 minutes ago, nicko said:

well I think if your just running around the mountains without planning any type of food / cooking you might be in trouble. 

I'm not new to this game, I have 400 hours logged and have been playing since Jan 2017. I have done plenty of planning in this game. I am arguing that cooking style gives less freedom and forces you concentrate more on cooking (at the detriment of the other parts of the game which are more fun)

It's like Bioshock 1 and 2. Sure, that pipe maze thing when hacking may have been fun the first few times, but after the 50th time, it gets in the way of what makes Bioshock a great game. Bioshock is not a game about solving pipe flow mini games. No surprise that mechanic was dropped in Bioshock 2, and it was all the better for it.

[nicko]

6 minutes ago, psychomuffin said:

I'm not new to this game, I have 400 hours logged and have been playing since Jan 2017. I have done plenty of planning in this game. I am arguing that cooking style gives less freedom and forces you concentrate more on cooking (at the detriment of the other parts of the game which are more fun)

It's like Bioshock 1 and 2. Sure, that pipe maze thing when hacking may have been fun the first few times, but after the 50th time, it gets in the way of what makes Bioshock a great game. Bioshock is not a game about solving pipe flow mini games. No surprise that mechanic was dropped in Bioshock 2, and it was all the better for it.

I might of thought similar when i first tried it but now I am liking the new cooking. It gives me more freedom. Each to their own opinions I guess

 

[psychomuffin]

Part of me thinks about the what makes a game fun. Like with Bioshock, if you like pipe maze games, great! there are games dedicated to that, it's just not what Bioshock as a whole is. Similarly, if you like to micromanage, try factorio, Wube did a great job at that game! All I'm saying is that TLD isn't about cooking.

Perhaps if they make the interface more intuitive (to reduce people eating raw meat), make more reasonable times (maybe even snow can melt on its own in buildings warm enough!), and allow smaller fractions of time to be used for other functions (make studying a slider tool, down to the minute,) factor in weight and temp (eg, a chicken wing at very high temp should not take as long as a giant steak at low temp), then maybe it will get better.

I'm just surprised their internal play testing didn't reveal these issues before it was released to the public. Again, this is why I am so enamored with Wube and their consecutive 247 fridays of reports to the community (who play their own game a ton).

[TropicalSurvivor]

I think that the dev's intention with this new cooking system is to make the game more realistic, and it's a good thing. In a real situation you would have to spend some time to prepare your meal.

About the time we spend cooking, I think that it's a new challenge that requires us a better time management. We have to remember that TLD is not just an action game, but also a strategy game. Survive in a hostile world requires more strategy than action.

I see some people complaining that the game is getting easier and less challenging, but when the Hinterland guys do something to make the game more challenging what do those people do? Keep complaining instead of enjoying the game.

Lastly, I like the new cooking system, but I think that maybe the dev's could review the time it takes.

 

[Cr41g]

9 minutes ago, TropicalSurvivor said:

Lastly, I like the new cooking system, but I think that maybe the dev's could review the time it takes.

 

I think a review could be useful in regards to what you are cooking on... cooking a steak on the stove or on a grill over a fire barrel SHOULD be quicker than tossing a steak on a rock beside a fire where the heating is indirect... I would think the cooking times now would reflect the campfire time with stove and fire barrel being shorter...

 

That being said...thus far... since the update release.. my 500 day run attempt character has done campfire cooking exclusively as I am out and about away from my "home" scavenging... and I am enjoying it immensely

[TropicalSurvivor]

4 minutes ago, Cr41g said:

I think a review could be useful in regards to what you are cooking on... cooking a steak on the stove or on a grill over a fire barrel SHOULD be quicker than tossing a steak on a rock beside a fire where the heating is indirect... I would think the cooking times now would reflect the campfire time with stove and fire barrel being shorter...

That's a good point, and I think that the temperature of the fire should influence the cooking time too. I mean, a steak should cook faster in 30° than 5°, in addition to requiring a minimum temperature for cooking.

[Ruruwawa]

I enjoy the flexibility of the new cooking system, and I'm not spending more time cooking than before.   And less time for making water since I usually do that while sleeping.  My time out exploring is definitely not suffering... I'm running close to 50% outdoor hours in my current game, even after crafting a full set of fur clothing.

But I avoid low kcal meats like rabbit, wolf, and smaller fish and stick to deer, moose, and bear meat.  (Not because of the cooking system, but that's just my playstyle... I like to hunt the big animals.)  I think some balancing for the low kcal meats/ portions would be welcome.

 

[Dan_]

54 minutes ago, Ruruwawa said:

I enjoy the flexibility of the new cooking system, and I'm not spending more time cooking than before.   And less time for making water since I usually do that while sleeping.  

This! I've cooked a whole Moose while sleeping with a fire in the barn by trapper's two nights in a row, great way to fight CF and get your chores out the way. Water in a pot it's even better since you can sleep two hour chunks and get at least 4 liters out of the deal. If I don't need to improve my condition, it's time to eat crappy food and make water. Honestly, if anything the new cooking made the game easier and more enjoyable to play if you plan accordingly.

[Ruruwawa]

7 minutes ago, Dan_ said:

This! I've cooked a whole Moose while sleeping with a fire in the barn by trapper's two nights in a row, great way to fight CF and get your chores out the way. Water in a pot it's even better since you can sleep two hour chunks and get at least 4 liters out of the deal. If I don't need to improve my condition, it's time to eat crappy food and make water. Honestly, if anything the new cooking made the game easier and more enjoyable to play if you plan accordingly.

Sometimes I cook / make water when I need to improve condition too.  I just make a short fire that will burn out before my cookpots boil dry.  Start cooking, head to bed and one batch of water or food is done in the morning.  This is a little trickier because the burn time of the fire varies based on your fire starting skill and, if outdoors, bonus burn time.   I try to err on the side of a too-short fire since I can restart the fire in the morning to finish the chore off if the fire burns out too soon.

[ashein]

My two cents based on the latest experiences:

• Factoring in the fire temperature for cooking would be nice, but I guess that would be too complex to be enjoyable (high temp charring food before it's even safe to eat, fire temp decay over time if not fueled etc);
• Factoring in the meat chunk size for purposes of cooking time would definitely be appreciated. Bonus points for scaling the meat chunk according to its mass.
• Placing raw meat from the radial menu is scary as you can accidentally click to eat it raw. Haven't happened with me (yet, I guess), so if there's no confirmation dialog about that, it would also be nice to have. Bonus points for confirmation when double-clicking a raw item in the inventory screen - That accidentally happened with me a couple of time. Yay parasites! 

Overall it's quite enjoyable, especially in the late gameplay where you don't have many tasks to spend time on when in a shelter.  Wish you could at least just read one of those non-skill books or do something more interactive, like actually playing those cards

[Erutor]

On 6/16/2018 at 11:11 AM, Bladebss said:

Now cooking a kilo of venison probably would take about an hour.. so walst this is ALOT longer than it used to be it would be nice as in that time we are burning more wood and more cal, we could have proper calorie value for eating a kilo of venison. (1500cal)  rabbit too, a kilo of rabbit gives 1200cal! If im waiting all that realistic time for it to cook i want the realistic calories to go with it!

I Am Not A Designer On This Product, but, as a dev nerd with an irrelevant opinion, who gets to spout off on the internet, this seems like a relatively simple change that would solve more problems than it creates, without requiring massive code/ui/logic/workflow adjustments.

Re-balance a few sets of numbers:

1. Calories for each food item (raise, most are currently too low, particularly the protein sources, which are around 60% of actual)
2. "Starving" condition reduction per hour (raise enough that we can't starve all day then sleep it off - 2%/hr?)
3. Base Burden limit (30 kg is day pack weight, and some of our items are a bit on the heavy side, and we need to carry cooking gear and more food now, so bump this to 35, keeping us still in the day pack range, but on the upper end.)
4. Greatly reduce the calorie cost for light-weight activities.  It's surprisingly difficult to burn calories from exercise, and our current values are way too high (looking at you, fishing and curtain tearing...). Currently, most of us cheat by doing all our work and travel on an empty stomach, so the existing mechanic is completely broken and largely irrelevant.
   1. Possibly, zero out additional calorie consumption for all tasks, then set semi-realistic values for strenuous activities (harvesting game, breaking crates, sprinting, wolf struggles, cutting firewood, walking while seriously overburdened).

This wouldn't fix everything, of course. Base calorie consumption is about right (I thought it was high, but research says I'm wrong), but I should be able to starve for a few days without major consequences other than being more susceptible to cold, and condition gained by sleeping is too high, as is the speed of recovery from major injuries, but I think these are cases where they've decided gameplay is more important than realism. There are plenty of better solutions that many others have proposed to deal with hunger and starvation, but they seem likely to require more significant changes.

[Immediately]

i am a chinese player,we can not use youtube or some other foreignal  viedo websites,chould you just make a official account in chinese bilibili,and put the viedo on it,so that you can extrend your players in china,we really like these kind of games,also,put the long and minute statement of the update in chinese will be more convenient for us to understand it,thanks for your company to creat such a awesome survive game for us  !>_<!

[Tbone555]

man yall are being babies about the cook times. these cook times are the same as when we had to pass time for things to cook. and you can STILL pass time while your stuff cooks. or, you can do something else like some light reading or maintaining your gear. i personally love it. i do think we need an alternative though for late game. theoretically when all your stuff decays when youre laaaaaaaate into the game and you have to survive off natural resources only... yeah you wont have much luck when your last pot breaks and you have no container to boil your water in. an easy fix would be to take off degradation from the pots. my 90 year old grandmother still uses the same pot from when she was my age, so it would be fine just removing that haha. cans would still degrade, because obviously a tin can wont last forever. it would rust or get accidentally crushed in your pack, if nothing else. would also like to see more variety aswell. i'd like to see a campfire coffee pot and maybe a cast iron skillet. the new map is awesome, havent fully explored yet but i so look forward to exploring these signal fires and ice caves. my first try didnt go so well

as for future updates, i'd still like to really see primitive firestarting

[EricTheGreat12]

2 hours ago, Tbone555 said:

 

as for future updates, i'd still like to really see primitive firestarting

Since the next update will be on Story Mode, do we really know what we could get in the next Sandbox Update? The update after Episode 3 will most likely open up the regions of the Episode to sandbox gameplay, but what else? 

 

The Long Dark surprised us with the Custom Difficulty and Real-time cooking, yet we have 0 idea of what will come next; The devs diaries are so far apart that the little amount we get from Hinterland is rare. 

 

Anything we get besides for Story Mode is a completely wild guess from this point on. Primitive Firestarting may never happen for all we know

[jonesing]

Excellent work, team. Thanks for the amazing update. It's a blast! The cooking system and new map are quite challenging (in a good way!). 

[Guest jeffpeng]

On 20.6.2018 at 5:41 PM, Erutor said:

I Am Not A Designer On This Product, but, as a dev nerd with an irrelevant opinion, who gets to spout off on the internet, this seems like a relatively simple change that would solve more problems than it creates, without requiring massive code/ui/logic/workflow adjustments.

Re-balance a few sets of numbers:

1. Calories for each food item (raise, most are currently too low, particularly the protein sources, which are around 60% of actual)
2. "Starving" condition reduction per hour (raise enough that we can't starve all day then sleep it off - 2%/hr?)
3. Base Burden limit (30 kg is day pack weight, and some of our items are a bit on the heavy side, and we need to carry cooking gear and more food now, so bump this to 35, keeping us still in the day pack range, but on the upper end.)
4. Greatly reduce the calorie cost for light-weight activities.  It's surprisingly difficult to burn calories from exercise, and our current values are way too high (looking at you, fishing and curtain tearing...). Currently, most of us cheat by doing all our work and travel on an empty stomach, so the existing mechanic is completely broken and largely irrelevant.
   1. Possibly, zero out additional calorie consumption for all tasks, then set semi-realistic values for strenuous activities (harvesting game, breaking crates, sprinting, wolf struggles, cutting firewood, walking while seriously overburdened).

This wouldn't fix everything, of course. Base calorie consumption is about right (I thought it was high, but research says I'm wrong), but I should be able to starve for a few days without major consequences other than being more susceptible to cold, and condition gained by sleeping is too high, as is the speed of recovery from major injuries, but I think these are cases where they've decided gameplay is more important than realism. There are plenty of better solutions that many others have proposed to deal with hunger and starvation, but they seem likely to require more significant changes.

You got about everything right in my equally irrelevant opinion. Your post outlines pretty well that the actual "problem" with the cooking changes are not a problem with the cooking changes at all, but with the underlying food/kcal ratio and how you are not only able to "starve" your way through the game to mitigate this problem, but essentially have to. And this just got more emphasis with the cooking changes.

Now that cooking is much more interactive, requires more planning, arguably more resources but also rewards the player for using higher class cooking places it's the perfect opportunity to balance out the other food mechanics. As I said in a post in the Dev Diary issue of May: "Make Food Matter Again". Part of this has been achieved by making cooking more than just a click&timelapse chore, now it's time to give food more realistic values and make starvation a more terrifying but also more easily avoidable prospect - not a strategy.

As for numbers and effects: A person can go without food for days without immediate repercussions, only someone doing this on a regular basis will suffer gravely. So maybe putting in a grace period of two or three days after being well-fed for a prolonged period of time in which you'd only lose 1%? (instead of 2%) per hour of starvation would offset punishing players that usually care well for themselves but have gotten in some sort of unforseen trouble, but still punish players trying to go skinny beyond healthy. It would also make starvation less punishing in the frist days after starting a new game as we can expect our protagonist was eating fairly well before being flung into the wilderness obviously unprepared. Especially starting in a place like FM or the new HRV would be nigh impossible otherwise when facing not the most preferable of conditions.

I'm not entirely sure the base 30kg would need to be changed (at least not for that reason). If your food is worth about 50% more (I do agree on the protein-rich foods being more heavily undervalued) this could be enough to offset the need to carry around cans. I don't think pots are even supposed to be traveling gear, and I kinda agree with that. Two cans should provide a traveling character with all the water it needs when using both cooking pads on a campfire effectively.

To the people feeling strongly about that TLD shouldn't be a cooking simulator: TLD is a survival simulator. And food is one (if not the) primary cornerstone of survival. That's like saying a racing simulator shouldn't be about having to push the breaks since it's about driving fast and not slowing down.

[Guest jeffpeng]

On 21.6.2018 at 11:09 PM, Tbone555 said:

man yall are being babies about the cook times. these cook times are the same as when we had to pass time for things to cook. and you can STILL pass time while your stuff cooks. or, you can do something else like some light reading or maintaining your gear. i personally love it. i do think we need an alternative though for late game. theoretically when all your stuff decays when youre laaaaaaaate into the game and you have to survive off natural resources only... yeah you wont have much luck when your last pot breaks and you have no container to boil your water in. an easy fix would be to take off degradation from the pots. my 90 year old grandmother still uses the same pot from when she was my age, so it would be fine just removing that haha. cans would still degrade, because obviously a tin can wont last forever. it would rust or get accidentally crushed in your pack, if nothing else. would also like to see more variety aswell. i'd like to see a campfire coffee pot and maybe a cast iron skillet. the new map is awesome, havent fully explored yet but i so look forward to exploring these signal fires and ice caves. my first try didnt go so well

as for future updates, i'd still like to really see primitive firestarting

As far as I know cooking pots only degrade, and then by "just" 10%, if you boil off the water in them and leave them cooking. If you align your fire burn times carefully with the maximum time it will take before the water has boiled off, your pots should virtually last forever unless you actively mismanage them - which, yes, will happen once in a while, eventually. But it's not like there are only 10 pots in the game.

[nicko]

You can also repair pots with metal and simple tools.

[Guest jeffpeng]

50 minutes ago, nicko said:

You can also repair pots with metal and simple tools.

Hu. Confirmed. You can indeed. I guess that ends that argument.

[Tbone555]

@jeffpeng @nicko

Oooh okay, thanks for the information! I didn't know that as I have not even found a pot in my game yet haha. Good to know