Milton Mailbag -- Dispatch #3

[Raphael van Lierop]

Hey all,

Thanks for all the great questions last week. For this week's Mailbag, we're trying something a bit different. We're going to leave the thread open so that you can discuss the responses if you like. Because I'm busy working on the game, I won't be responding to follow-ups necessarily, but the community team will be here to support you. And of course, if you have questions for the next Mailbag, make sure you post them in this thread.

If you like the Mailbag, please upvote it so we know you want us to keep doing it. 

Without further ado, here's Dispatch #3!

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Question from @Mystery guy:

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Do you plan to increase the amount of times that you inform us on development (more dev diarys amd what not)?

This is one of the reasons why we started the weekly Mailbag. Dev diaries are really time consuming to produce, and while we'll still release them, Mailbag lets me jump in and respond to Q's a bit more quickly. We've also discussed firing up Signal Hill Radio (podcast) again. Keeping the community informed of development is a priority, but we have to balance the time spent there against the time working on the game. 

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Question from @hemaphore: 

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i'm sure this has either been asked before or is a mechanic in the game, but since neither are clear to me, i'll ask anyway:

my father-in-law cures his firewood for a year prior to actually burning it. this made me wonder if TLD had a similar mechanic (or would be something they'd introduce) into the game but with a more compressed timeframe and contributors to success with fires (e.g. fresh cut wood has a less-likelier chance of starting than wood that has been sitting for a few hours or days ). just a thought.

 

Yeah - we actually have a "wetness" value for wood found in the world, but we don't currently use it. We were planning on introducing the idea that some fuel sources wouldn't be dry, and would either affect firestarting or heat production, but we thought it might introduce too much micro, so we've never used it. We already have the concept of needing to "cure" wood to use it (ex. with the saplings for bow/arrow crafting) so it wouldn't be too hard to support the idea of wet wood that needs to be dried for optimal use.

Problem is, if we added it, people would ask for it to be an option, which complicates things a fair bit. So, in general we try to avoid adding mechanics to the game that will only appeal to the "hardcore" players. That said, if we felt it added something good to the overall experience for all our players, we'd consider adding it.

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Question from @The Practical Pessimist:

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With the new cooking system and pot item, will there be a chance to combine foods such as animal meat and soups in the future. One Example being venison and bear meat with tomato soup or pork and beans. 

Yes. I think adding more layered "recipes" is a logical next step for the food/cooking system. It's something we've discussed. We'd just to like to add something a bit more to it, vs. just another way to consume calories. Breath of the Wild does this well, although they get away with a lot of silliness due to it being a magical world and being a Zelda game. But I definitely like aspects of their system.

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Question from @Sgt_Spatula: 

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Have you guys considered adding a respawn mechanic for Survival Mode, like tree limbs and animals respawn after a certain amount of time? Obviously, it would be an optional setting, but for me personally and I presume many other people who play this game enjoy the daily lifestyle presented by this game. For instance, I enjoy the Frontier lifestyle concept and I believe this game is a very good platform for some of these concepts, but unfortunately, due to the anti-respawning nature of this game (which is great for realistic survival) you are essentially forced to adopt a nomadic lifestyle, since your resources will inevitably run out in a certain area. Anyways, just wondering if you have any plans for a feature like this in the future.

This is already how the game works.  Wildlife respawn according to various rules, which helps provide a sense of randomness, but in general you will never "run out", it's just that some wildlife will respawn more slowly over time to simulate de-population. This is something I'd like to build on, TBH, to create a sense that wildlife is more nomadic and so you *have* to move to find food, which is interesting and "realistic" for people who care about realism (though realism is not our primary focus).

Sticks and Branches (which you harvest Sticks from) do respawn, especially after blizzards. Limbs do not respawn, partly because that doesn't really make sense (?). I guess for fuel sources beyond Sticks/Branches we'd probably need to come up with a way for you to harvest fuel from other sources. Maybe trees that can "fall down" and spawn limbs around them. (And before anyone suggests "chopping them down" -- have you ever tried to chop a significant tree with a hatchet?)

EDIT -- Apparently we do respawn entire Limbs in the game. Aren't we nice? 

But, in general, we *want* you to go out into the world and explore in search of resources. That said, it's totally feasible to have safehouses/basecamps in multiple areas and kind of rove between them, and over the long term, wildlife will replenish as will stick resources, so you can't really fully strip-mine a region to the extent that it won't be survivable in the future. It'll just get more challenging, as you would expect (i.e. the easy reosurces like food left behind, is gone, and now you have to rely more on what you can forage/find/make).

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Q: (Various questions about adding new wildlife or improving existing wildlife)

A: Yes, we will, dev resources permitting.  Hope you're enjoying the Moose!

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Q: (Various questions about Ep3)

A: I've learned not to talk about things before we are ready to do so, so you won't hear anything from me about Episode Three until the time is right.  We're working on it. We'll let you know when we're ready to share more details.

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Question from @Swope25:

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will there be any other mini games like the safe? I know there was discussion about interactions with lighting a fire, but is there anything else that you have planned? Maybe like forging the scrap knife, having to hit points of the metal to make a better blade with better durability if you hit it correctly with the heavy hammer. Or anything thing to do with fishing, interactive gun cleaning, or crafting items. Anyways I believe I have spoke my mind, keep up the good work and have a nice day. 

I've never really been able to tell if people like this sort of "minigame" stuff in our game. In general, though, yes our trend is to try to push more and more of our experience outside of UI/progress bars and into active gameplay. The recent changes to Cooking are a sign of what's to come.

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Question from @nicko:

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I am really loving the new cooking. It lets me do a lot more other things while my steaks cook or water boils. One question you have a pot that is used for water, maybe soups and stews in distant future, how about some fry pans? for steaks, bacon and erm if any found eggs!  Just seems a bit odd how we wack our steak directly on the stove top atm, sure it works but not so good for the stove top, plus the steak would stick to it burn?

Great to hear you're enjoying it! Little known fact: you can cook Meats (including Fish) in the Pot. You don't *have* to place it directly on the cooking surface. But yes, we have some ideas of other cooking implements we'd like to add in the future as well as general improvements to the Cooking system.

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Question from @Rumpo:

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Do animals currently have internal organs? If I hit a bear in the heart with an arrow, is it an instant kill? If not, would you ever move to a system where the hunter is rewarded for precision and perhaps punished for missing?

Wildlife have a variety of "hit locations" on their bodies (most have 6) and each location has different stats for hits there affect the animal, mostly around Bleedout rates, damage, and critical chances. There are also modifiers for the type of weapon used, in terms of how it affects those values.

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Question from @Tylor9261:

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I read somewhere in an online post, that some major influences for TLD were atmospheric RPG's like S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Fallout aswell as immersive FPS's like Bioshock and Half-Life. All of these are some of my all time favorite titles, and I definitely feel them in The Long Dark's DNA. Since Arkane's success of reviving immersive sims, along with Eidos Montreal and Night Dive Studios rebooting of classic games. Would your company ever consider trying this genre in a new IP?  Considering how much The Long Dark arleady pulls the player into the world. I believe you guys would crush it at making a game like that 

Yes.

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Question from @stopherplato:

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Are you still pursuing a Nintendo Switch port? If so, how is that progressing?

Yes. We have some external people working on it, so it doesn't impact core development of The Long Dark. It's coming along. Too early to say much about it yet.

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Question from @Smellyfries:

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Are you going to make it so it's harder to eat raw meat from the radical menu? It's easy to mess up and accidentally eat raw meat instead of placing it.

We tweaked the UI to address this in a hotfix to VIGILANT FLAME, but more work is needed. We're analyzing the current radial and thinking about what deeper changes we may need to make to help with the current confusion. There are some easy solutions but they are just bandaids so we're looking at some deeper work.

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I think that's all I have time for this week! I hope you find these answers helpful/interesting. Thanks for taking the time to submit them, and for reading this thread. And please keep the discussion civil -- we're all friends here. 

Enjoy your weekend!

- Raph

 

[Admin]

Please use this thread for discussion of @Raphael van Lierop's answers. However while we will be monitoring the thread, he won't be following up on questions here. If you have more questions please post them in the main question thread and they may be addressed in a future Milton Mailbag.

[TerribleSurvivor]

43 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Yes, we will, dev resources permitting.  Hope you're enjoying the Moose!

I would like to hear more about it in the future since frustrating wildlife experiences (In one emoji: ) bother me the single most in this game. The other animals are pretty well made already. Oh and personally for me, i am enjoying the moose

That combination of food ingredients and the wood wetness value look like interesting mechanics too. What thrills me the most is the upcoming bear spear. I bet it will spice up the gameplay quite a lot allowing for bolder playstyle B)

Keep up the work guys!

 

[Pillock]

Added upvote, as requested! Weekly mailbags are a great thing.

Just like to say, I'd would really support the inclusion of the 'wetness' stat for firewood. Perhaps as a Custom option only, if you're worried about affecting balance in the pre-defined Experience Modes?

I also really like the idea of adding more interactivity to tasks that currently are abstracted to a progress bar only. Not 'mini-games', necessarily - I wouldn't call the new cooking mechanics a 'mini-game' - but just some task to perform that makes the world feel more tactile and immersive, while still allowing time acceleration if the player chooses. The cooking system does this brilliantly, I think.
(Also like to add my support to cooking recipes!)

 

[Spakerman]

I like the changes to the cooking system and if that's an indication of the general trend we can expect then I'm excited to see what comes next.  Keep up the great work.

[Cr41g]

cooking system has added much to the game and at the same point freed up time to do other tasks.. I agree... I am very excited to see what the future holds

[TerribleSurvivor]

Just now, Pillock said:

Added upvote, as requested! Weekly mailbags are a great thing.

Just like to say, I'd would really support the inclusion of the 'wetness' stat for firewood. Perhaps as a Custom option only, if you're worried about affecting balance in the pre-defined Experience Modes? 

I am all for it! More options tend to be a good thing in general

I also really like the idea of adding more interactivity to tasks that currently are abstracted to a progress bar only. Not 'mini-games', necessarily - I wouldn't call the new cooking mechanics a 'mini-game' - but just some task to perform that makes the world feel more tactile and immersive, while still allowing time acceleration if the player chooses. The cooking system does this brilliantly, I think.
(Also like to add my support to cooking recipes!)

I would call that a logistical challenge. I would like to see more of that as well. Maybe increase the impact and duration of good and bad weather conditions to encourage prolonged hunting and exploration sessions as well as pushing the player indoors sometimes. That would reward more organized gameplay.

 

 

[ThePancakeLady]

Enjoyed this Dispatch, even more than the first 2. Lots of good questions got selected, And I am satisfied with the answers given. And I learned something... limbs do not respawn, though many of us believed that they did. Good info to have, and to let new players know. 

 

Enjoyed it @Raphael van Lierop, keep up the work to keep improving the game, and grow the community. Onward.

[Karl Grylls]

 

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With the new cooking system and pot item, will there be a chance to combine foods such as animal meat and soups in the future. One Example being venison and bear meat with tomato soup or pork and beans. 

Yes. I think adding more layered "recipes" is a logical next step for the food/cooking system. It's something we've discussed. We'd just to like to add something a bit more to it, vs. just another way to consume calories. Breath of the Wild does this well, although they get away with a lot of silliness due to it being a magical world and being a Zelda game. But I definitely like aspects of their system.

 

I also love to see that my idea back from 2016 is going to find a way in the game Even if you guys were planning to do it long before i did, maybe

[Dan_]

26 minutes ago, ThePancakeLady said:

Enjoyed this Dispatch, even more than the first 2. Lots of good questions got selected, And I am satisfied with the answers given. And I learned something... limbs do not respawn, though many of us believed that they did. Good info to have, and to let new players know. 

I do not want to sound silly and contradict the man who creates the game himself but... I have numerous recollections of limbs appearing out of nowhere and harvesting the same limb in multiple occasions, am I going crazy or daydreaming about the game? 

The best mailbag so far, great questions were selected. Excited for the new animals and new game mechanics, they change the way you play the game and give even more motivation to fire up the game again, even after hundreds of hours. Keep 'em coming bros! 

 

[kopo79]

Candles?we need candles!.

And ability to clean houses...?

[shutch06]

Will there eventually be a use for the car batteries?

[GermanSS95]

I love cooking system but, like someone asked, I agree, the radial menu needs to be improved. I also ate raw meat several times instead of placing it or drank some liquid and etc. Maybe also find an easier way to select which elements you want to show in the radial menu would be nice. I think it's great but sometimes a bit confusing.

Btw I've enjoyed the dispatch, waiting for next week.

[GroggyNoggin]

Wait. I'm pretty sure limbs respawn. I have several that I go to over and over after blizzards replenish. I only chop fir limbs, and I'm always getting them from the same place.

[TerribleSurvivor]

29 minutes ago, GroggyNoggin said:

Wait. I'm pretty sure limbs respawn. I have several that I go to over and over after blizzards replenish. I only chop fir limbs, and I'm always getting them from the same place.

It´s the big limbs (5x cedar and 4x fir) that do not respawn afaik. The small limbs respawn indeed. The respawn event is triggered mostly after a blizzard raged but also after several days.

[ThePancakeLady]

43 minutes ago, GroggyNoggin said:

Wait. I'm pretty sure limbs respawn. I have several that I go to over and over after blizzards replenish. I only chop fir limbs, and I'm always getting them from the same place.

11 minutes ago, TerribleSurvivor said:

It´s the big limbs (5x cedar and 4x fir) that do not respawn afaik. The small limbs respawn indeed. The respawn event is triggered mostly after a blizzard raged but also after several days.

 

Okay, that makes sense. Maybe the small limbs are not supposed to respawn (?), but they seem to do so. But yeah, the big ones 4X and 5X size never do. Most notable and easily observed case is the large limb across from the Camp Office in ML. Once harvested, it is gone forever. But indeed, I swear I have had 3X size limbs, cedar and fir, pop into existence up by the tracks, behind the CO, some literally seeming to spawn in right under my feet, right after I harvested everything in that location. Which is why I think I always was sure limbs respawned, but never thought to separate out the "small" and "large" ones. @Raphael van Lierop, are the "small" limbs not supposed to respawn? 

[Raphael van Lierop]

Yes-- Sticks & Branches (which you harvest for Sticks) both respawn. But no, the bigger Limbs (which you harvest for Fir and Cedar) do not. Edited the original Dispatch to include this note. I kind of bundled them together (ha!) because they both produce Sticks.

[TerribleSurvivor]

10 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Yes-- Sticks & Branches (which you harvest for Sticks) both respawn. But no, the bigger Limbs (which you harvest for Fir and Cedar) do not. Edited the original Dispatch to include this note. I kind of bundled them together (ha!) because they both produce Sticks.

That is absolutely not the case for me and i am using the latest version of the game.

I have both cedar and fir Limbs respawning after several days waiting. The cedar limbs that spawn near the camp office (Mystery Lake) along the rails to the Forlorn Muskeg respawn on a regular basis. Same for other locations. I am playing a custom game. You might need to take a closer look at it if it is really not intended!

[GroggyNoggin]

Yes, I go to the same limbs over and over also. The ones I get have 3x fir wood.  I selfishly hope that Hinterland doesn't patch that, but understand if they do. I don't ever break down branches unless I have no choice. I'm definitely talking about limbs. (3x fir) 

[Vinceofpyrenees]

22 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Question from @hemaphore: 

Yeah - we actually have a "wetness" value for wood found in the world, but we don't currently use it. We were planning on introducing the idea that some fuel sources wouldn't be dry, and would either affect firestarting or heat production, but we thought it might introduce too much micro, so we've never used it. We already have the concept of needing to "cure" wood to use it (ex. with the saplings for bow/arrow crafting) so it wouldn't be too hard to support the idea of wet wood that needs to be dried for optimal use.

Problem is, if we added it, people would ask for it to be an option, which complicates things a fair bit. So, in general we try to avoid adding mechanics to the game that will only appeal to the "hardcore" players. That said, if we felt it added something good to the overall experience for all our players, we'd consider adding it.

Oh...unfortunately. I'd love to deal with wet wood. It's so realistic. And it's so much a crucial thing to have a chance to survive Dry branches for starting a fire !

Hinterland, how could you judge the wetness usefull for clothes, but not for wood ?

[TerribleSurvivor]

9 minutes ago, Vinceofpyrenees said:

Hinterland, how could you judge the wetness usefull for clothes, but not for wood ?

Clothes can be dried within a night or so and are not a single use item. Thus it is not as impactful as having to cure wood for several days/weeks in order to eventually use it for 60 to 90 minutes fire duration.

[MrWolf]

I like the idea of using the wetness in wood.  I think a good compromise would be to allow wet wood to be burned, but it would burn for a shorter time than it does now and dried wood would burn longer.

[Vinceofpyrenees]

12 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

I like the idea of using the wetness in wood.  I think a good compromise would be to allow wet wood to be burned, but it would burn for a shorter time than it does now and dried wood would burn longer.

YES.

[Pillock]

33 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

I like the idea of using the wetness in wood.  I think a good compromise would be to allow wet wood to be burned, but it would burn for a shorter time than it does now and dried wood would burn longer.

You see, this is where I think the fire mechanics need altering. Dry wood doesn't burn longer than damp wood - it's the other way around. Precisely because it is damp, it doesn't burn as fiercely, and therefore it lasts longer. Dry wood should burn hotter but not longer.

There are other things about fire in TLD that I'd like to see changed, and there has been mention in the past from the devs that it is/was an aspiration. Hopefully there is some prototype in the works. Now that coking and clothing have received their overhauls, I'm really gunning for fire mechanics to be next!

[Raphael van Lierop]

On 2018-07-07 at 11:05 AM, Vinceofpyrenees said:

Oh...unfortunately. I'd love to deal with wet wood. It's so realistic. And it's so much a crucial thing to have a chance to survive Dry branches for starting a fire !

Hinterland, how could you judge the wetness usefull for clothes, but not for wood ?

We make these kinds of decisions all the time. My feeling is managing wet clothing drives more interesting decisions than managing wet wood. 

Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you *should* do something. Or, as I recently saw quoted more eloquently: "You can do anything. But you can't do everything." This aphorism applies very well to making games. For everything you include, you leave something behind.