Milton Mailbag -- Dispatch #3


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57 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

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. :)

 

I'm in the "have very detailed survival mechanics" camp but I understand and appreciate all the thought that goes into balancing the experience for everyone, I think TLD has a good compromise between some elaborate mechanics to keep the player involved in learning the ropes but not to the point of being overwhelming and forcing you to micromanage everything. You can still micro most of the time and have a super efficient maniac survivor, but I find it takes away from the exploration and atmosphere of the game, I guess that sums up your last sentence up there. Thinking back to the start of my post, I don't think I'm in the crazy detail camp anymore. o.O 

Also, Interloper is not hard enough. :wolf:

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5 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

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. :)

 

Ok. I see, and I understand. I was just imaginating that the wood wetness could be interesting; Could a test branch, or a "test tube version", "idea incubator version" be considered for these kind of uncertained features ? Maybe the community would enjoy it.

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On 7.7.2018 at 6:28 PM, GroggyNoggin said:

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.

It was my memory that the limbs respawn ever since they were introduced. It somehow FEELS better for me that they are a renewable resource. And I am saying that as someone who usually votes for making the game harder. My feeling is that many people would dislike it if limbs were turned into a non-renewable resource at this point. I don't think this change would make the game better currently.

On 7.7.2018 at 8:58 PM, Pillock said:

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.

And this.

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On 7/7/2018 at 4:26 PM, 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.

This. Think huge ones... like that one sticking out of the plane door at the Summit... or near the cave entrance at Eric's Falls...

And surely, many may recall the bug with freshly spawned limbs being "unharvestable" :hatchet:

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On 7/6/2018 at 9:36 PM, Raphael van Lierop said:

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.

What confuses me the most is that there is no option to drink unsafe water from the radial, but there is an option to eat raw meat. Is this inconsistency a deliberate choice you made or is it just a leftover of an old mechanic that will be tweaked? Maybe just removing the option to eat raw meat could be a good solution. :) (not that I mind... I learned immediately to drop meat on the ground first, or cook from the pot interface B|)

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9 hours ago, Kaisentlaia said:

What confuses me the most is that there is no option to drink unsafe water from the radial, but there is an option to eat raw meat. Is this inconsistency a deliberate choice you made or is it just a leftover of an old mechanic that will be tweaked? Maybe just removing the option to eat raw meat could be a good solution. :) (not that I mind... I learned immediately to drop meat on the ground first, or cook from the pot interface B|)

Someone on Steam pointed something out, and I immediately realized they had hit on the source of the inconsistency.  It's the alternating left and right clicks, at least for me.  Open radial, left-click camp-craft, left-click a pot or can, left-click to place.  Consistent.   Open radial, left-click food, right-click meat, left-click to place.  Out of nowhere, it's a right-click in the middle of the sequence when everything else is left-click.  Strangely that realization alone stopped me from ever accidentally eating the meat since then.  Of course now that I said it I will probably devour half a moose in rapid succession, because if I'm gonna do something stupid, I'm gonna take it to an 11.

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This isn't quite so inconsistent as you think. The inconsistency is actually in the camp-craft submenu. If I open radial, left click weapons, and right click the rifle I can place it. The Camp Craft submenu is the one where you've always been able to place (fires, bedrolls, etc) and has always been left click to place, so that was kept for the interface. Now you can use right click to place from the other submenus.

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On 7/8/2018 at 12:06 AM, TerribleSurvivor said:

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!

I can also vouch for the fact that the smaller Cedar and Fir limbs respawn in my custom games, usually after a blizzard. These fallen limbs have saved me many a time and I hope this isn't going to be a case of an overlooked bug that's going to be fixed in the next update. It makes sense that bigger limbs might break off and fall after a heavy blizzard. It's a renewable resource that I very much appreciate and will dearly miss if gone.

 

On 7/9/2018 at 9:25 AM, Raphael van Lierop said:

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. :)

 

Good quote. It's easy to spread yourself too thin by taking on the world as opposed to focusing on the important thing that matter. Thanks, @Raphael van Lierop and the Hinterland team! Really love this game to bits and am enjoying the weekly Mailbags :)

 

On 7/7/2018 at 3:36 AM, Raphael van Lierop said:

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 got really excited when I read this as I'm in the camp of folks who are loving the new cooking system. Being able to mix various food sources to create new and surprising recipes in the future fills me with joyful anticipation! I can't wait to see what bonus stats, benefits or potential healing abilities these new recipes will give. It'll be a great addition as it can be completely optional to those who enjoy spending a bit more time sitting by a fire/stove to cook. When you want to quickly fry up some rabbit or munch on cold cattails, you can do that too... and keep on moving!

Looking forward to future updates and the next Mailbag.

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14 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

Someone on Steam pointed something out, and I immediately realized they had hit on the source of the inconsistency.  It's the alternating left and right clicks, at least for me.  Open radial, left-click camp-craft, left-click a pot or can, left-click to place.  Consistent.   Open radial, left-click food, right-click meat, left-click to place.  Out of nowhere, it's a right-click in the middle of the sequence when everything else is left-click.  Strangely that realization alone stopped me from ever accidentally eating the meat since then.  Of course now that I said it I will probably devour half a moose in rapid succession, because if I'm gonna do something stupid, I'm gonna take it to an 11.

You know, while my muscle memory has adjusted to the new radial dial and I've stopped consistently eating raw meat, it still happens from time to time. It's frustrating, but what I've come to realise is that with meat that's just been quartered (still "fresh"), I can generally accidentally devour a piece and not get food poisoning. Especially when I quickly hit "escape". Thank goodness for little mercies.

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Perhaps raw meat should be shuffled over to the campcraft menu as not to populate the edible food section. and its only option available should be "place".  If you want to eat it, the option should still should be available in your inventory, kind of like dirty water is treated as of now.

For now. maybe get used to the "Drop bait" button?

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12 hours ago, scuttlebum said:

You know, while my muscle memory has adjusted to the new radial dial and I've stopped consistently eating raw meat, it still happens from time to time. It's frustrating, but what I've come to realise is that with meat that's just been quartered (still "fresh"), I can generally accidentally devour a piece and not get food poisoning. Especially when I quickly hit "escape". Thank goodness for little mercies.

The chance of getting food poisoning is a flat rate, independent of how much you actually consume.  If you eat a piece of raw meat, the odds of you getting food poisoning are the same whether you eat the whole thing, or ESC-cancel early.  So if you happen to eat raw meat, you may as well finish it.  If you get food poisoning, at least you've got a full belly to show for it.

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Are you going to make any improvements to the gun? Right now, it is a great weapon for hunting, if you are not tired. 

But even if you are well rested, the gun can still shake a lot, causing a lot of missed shots. So this leads to my second question...

Are you going to add a mechanic to the gun where you can control your breathing to steady your aim? It's something i thought would help with using the gun in earlier skill levels, and it could have a bad effect if you hold your breath for a long time, such as if you hold your breath, the gun steadies, but if you hold it for too long, you get even shakier with your aim. 

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I have another question.

Are you going to make it so that food cooks according to the fire temperature? Right now, even if your fire is over 300 degrees, food cooks at a set time, depending to your skill. Are you going to make it so food cooks and burns faster if your fire is extremely hot, or slower if cold?

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A couple of questions and comment:

Are you going to make some changes to cooking system outdoor camp fires? 

Because there's already game meta where you can create 3 or 4 campfires in the vicinity which would open up 6-8 cooking slots.   Not sure if you intend to allow this to happen.  What if you use a stone as a part of requirement to build a campfire with the cooking system outdoor?  It would help slow down the cooking skill system from going up too quickly.  A stone might be too heavy to carry around and players must find a stone and may be in a limited supply of using the stone so that players don't use many campfire to speed up their cooking skills.   If you opt not to use stone, you may still build a fireplace outdoor but with no cooking system.

Would you be willing to implement an internal temperatures changes as an option in the survival mode in custom or even some interloper survival?

Some players have been asking for this feature to make the game more challenging and only thing they get is the windproof protection while indoor.  Have this feature as an option before starting the game.   It sure feel strange on not using the fire when coming indoor from an extremely cold spell outdoor and you are warmed up.    A -40 C outdoor should not be a constant temperature with -5 C indoor and it should be a lot colder indoor.    If you feel that indoor temperatures should be constant no matter the weather, at least make the clothing system taking more damaging indoor than outdoor when you are still wearing the coat indoor, to force the players to take off clothes to preserve the condition of their clothes, and cold enough to be forced to create fires indoor to keep themselves warm just as in real life.

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9 hours ago, Smellyfries said:

Are you going to make any improvements to the gun? Right now, it is a great weapon for hunting, if you are not tired. 

But even if you are well rested, the gun can still shake a lot, causing a lot of missed shots. So this leads to my second question...

Are you going to add a mechanic to the gun where you can control your breathing to steady your aim? It's something i thought would help with using the gun in earlier skill levels, and it could have a bad effect if you hold your breath for a long time, such as if you hold your breath, the gun steadies, but if you hold it for too long, you get even shakier with your aim. 

The swaying of your gun gets reduced the higher your rifle skill is. Have you ever been above level 3 with your gun?

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