Snow depth variation

[snowman]

It tends to snow a bit in TLD, but the amount of snow on the ground doesn't appear to increase, or indeed decrease.

Would it be feasible to look into this as an option on the "Custom" menu?

After all, if you've been stuck indoors during a huge blizzard, you'd expect conditions to be a bit tougher when you finally got back out.

[Mroz4k]

2 hours ago, snowman said:

It tends to snow a bit in TLD, but the amount of snow on the ground doesn't appear to increase, or indeed decrease.

Would it be feasible to look into this as an option on the "Custom" menu?

Lets think about this logically - is there something like an actual "snow" attribute in the game? Of course now. What looks like snow is really just a texture of ingame floor your character walks on. So, to give them an option to "increase" or "decrease", the game designers would have to take the current map of TLD and create a version with less snow, and with more snow - and the game would switch in between them while its snowing, as the character entered indoor locations or slept. The other option would be to entirely rework the game, at least I think so.

To make this for solely optional setting in custom would be ineffective - insane amounts of work only to present it to a few players who would turn it on in custom. It would be insane amount of work for very little of actual contribution. Sorry to say, as immersive as it could be, I dont see this happening.

[Willy Pete]

Cool idea, but it would be really hard to implement. Doesn't mean impossible, but unlikely at best.

[Mroz4k]

28 minutes ago, Willy Pete said:

Cool idea, but it would be really hard to implement. Doesn't mean impossible, but unlikely at best.

Its true that it wouldnt be impossible, just not very efficient, if we compared it to a different idea which would improve an aspect of the game as whole - like for example a cooking overhaul, that would improve the entire game - sandbox, story and all difficulties, equally. Sadly, the resources to create more content for the game are limited, and thus the ideas are inherently competitive, in a way. Only one can be worked on at one time.

Still, I think its a cool concept worth discussing. I imagine that once the TLD becomes more open to modding, this could be a very cool mod for the game. If done correctly, it would improve the immersion greatly. But, in my opinion, I would not hold much breath for the Hinterland to add this otherwise, still, I have been wrong before  Especially not if it was only done as an option for custom mode - I always reccomend people to not limit their ideas to a specific mode or difficulty - because then you are essentially swinging the ax on your own idea. From the mindset of a developer - why waste time on something that only a fraction of players will use when I could be working on something that benefits everyone? This idea gets infinitely better if OP removes the line about adding this only as a custom setting. Snow works this way in real world - should work this way regardless of the mode you are in  If there should be a custom setting, it would be to "turn this off", but frankly, that one is not necessary.

 

[s7mar7in]

1 hour ago, Mroz4k said:

Lets think about this logically

Please check my thinking on this one my friend.

If the objects in-game have settings that determine how they are dropped, (X, Y, Z axis). they are set to lay on/or slightly into, the "plane of the snow".

So, just like the arrows that got bugged by vigilant flame update, snow depth could be a temporary ability for objects to fall into/below the snow.

Then, after a long sunny day and/or a strong windy day, objects could be returned to the surface again.
(It would likely be a very big ask to make "temporary changes" to the floor, (object Z-axis settings), and have the change triggered by snow storms).

The other option would be simple setting, (with much artwork required), for shallow, moderate, deep, and very-deep footprint tracks in the snow.

But snow is a little deeper now; like the way dropped meat no longer lands perfectly flat on the ground following the Redux updates.  

[Mroz4k]

20 hours ago, s7mar7in said:

The other option would be simple setting, (with much artwork required), for shallow, moderate, deep, and very-deep footprint tracks in the snow.

 

Frankly, this would be probably the least difficult part of the idea.

In theory, what you described (if I understood it correctly) would work quite well. I dont think it would be neccesary to adjust the the height of the floor, this whole idea does not really need to have huge impact on the game, in fact, the less impact, the better - its value would lie in immersion. 

Problem with this is that it would be a tremendous amount of work, I think. We are talking about something that would virtually change the entire map, and keep changing it - so there are other problems like performance drops and requirements. I cant even imagine how much coding would this require.

What I believe might be a better solution is that the level of the game is kept intact, but there are zones where, depending on the weather, snow would increase above this basic level. That would still require a ton of work for designers but maybe not that much for the code devs. But I have next to no knowledge of how programming works, so Im gonna stop theoritizing right here.

[s7mar7in]

6 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

this whole idea does not really need to have huge impact on the game, in fact, the less impact, the better - its value would lie in immersion.

I agree with you @Mroz4k, let us consider what the OP suggests.

We prepare for sleep at the end of day by dropping hides and guts indoors and meat and fish outdoors.
Then we sleep and wake to find the weather is a heavy snow storm or blizzard.
(If the outdoor objects were re-coded to now sink an extra percentage below the terrain, temporarily as the OP suggests)
Then we exit the shelter and notice a large percentage of the meat and fish we stored on snow is now not visible.

(But maybe the meat and fish are still clickable if we know where to search).

Some players may not be pleased with a (new) challenge while waiting/searching to access food stored outside.
This very small and temporary change to how objects sink into terrain has a huge and positive game effect, (loot could also be hidden during snow storms and then later revealed when the temporary deep snow is removed by sun and wind). This might add a lot to the game! 
And this style of snow depth effect would not need to change the games map terrain ever.
Players could also adapt through play style, by using porch floors or some other outdoor containers, (like the bear cache concept).

Allthough, IMHO, the proposed artwork for "extra deep footprint paths through the snow" would also look really nice.