What is the 1 thing you dislike most in The Long Dark?


Lifferds

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 198
  • Created
  • Last Reply

-Weapons and fighting:

* Apparently your fists weigh 50lbs apiece, and you have to "build up your strength" in order to swing them. All while a wolf is tearing at your throat. Adrenaline apparently doesn't exist.

* No weapons other than a knife, a hatchet, or a prybar. Nope, if a wolf jumps me, I can't grab that hefty branch 5 minutes away and swing it like a club, or grab it and sharpen the tip to stab with. No sir.

-Food:

* Canned/prepackaged food goes bad so fast, apparently humanity invented canning for the hell of it, not to preserve food

* You have to eat an entire wolf in 2-3 days, to avoid starving to death.

* You can only eat the lean muscle meat of animals, not the tasty, life-preserving fat/marrow, nor the vitamin-rich organ meats. All that other stuff is "icky".

* Deer apparently provide 20lbs of meat at max. I've got a leg of whitetail deer in my freezer. The (one leg, out of four) is easily 15lbs of meat

-Animals:

* Animals happily wander around during a storm , oblivious to the wind, hail and snow. The only animals I've seen that take shelter are bears.

+ Apparently, wolves forget they are a pack species.

+ Animals exist in far greater concentrations than they do in real life. I've seen more deer in Mystery Lake (in one playthrough) than I have ever seen in my life, in an area of the US where there is a deer "EPIDEMIC", and the local population is severely overpopulated.

-Item degradation:

+ Somehow, things which are not "supposed" to degrade over multiple lifetimes of use, sharpening stones, well-kept knives and axes, etc, fall apart after a couple of uses.

* Apparently, full-grain leather gets torn to pieces a couple of days after being sewn into garments

* Apparently, we can't pick up those nice wool blankets and comforters we can see on beds to make clothing from.

-Mechanics:

* Nope, can't cut/break boughs off a tree to put beneath you as insulation.

* Yep, you can build a fire RIGHT on top of the snow/ice, and it will totally burn fine. The moisture and cold won't seep up into the tinder/kindling, no sir!

* There is only fir and cedar firewood, no birch, no nameless deciduous tree

* You can't burn the numerous rubber tires you can find in almost every map.

And many, MANY more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hunting Mechanics / That Damn Rifle

Not sure if this game even has proper bullet physics but i find that compared to most other games the accuracy of the hunting rifle is beyond bad (ie constantly missing near point blank head-shots on deer from a steady crouch) (95% weapon condition too)

and the fact that anything other than a perfect headshot causes the animals to run away at full speed!! showing no signs of being wounded taking no damage from blood loss and leaving no tracks / blood trails you can follow.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The game is really really good but some tweaks are needed:

+1 for the stats degrading too fast.

I wake up, run around the house and 1/4 of my fatigue bar has gone!? So with this is mind, if I ran around my house 4 times apparently I need to go to bed or can't run until I sleep again?!

Whilst I do also agree that the time goes too fast I do understand that it is in relation to the games map sizes etc and also does link with the above mentioned stats degrading rapidly. The fatigue does go down very quickly though. We are paced in the game by weather, hunger and thirst so perhaps the fatigue bar could be a little bit more relaxed (like doubled).

Not much reason to go out at night and IF I do I can hardly see anything. The inside is also too dark still unless you stand IN a beam of light. Note - on the clear nights that I have ventured out, it is really beautiful. Maybe we could have a waterfall that is flowing in the day because it is quite warm, but at night it freezes up and we could climb up it. This would force us to go out at night (It could be the only way to get to another region perhaps).

With that in mind perhaps the opposite could be implemented too ---

Behind a waterfall is a cave system that leads to another region/zone or area of that map. The waterfall is frozen at night and we can't access the entrance so we have to wait for day (or maybe get a serious fire going-think forge temperatures) to get it to thaw so we can walk through the waterfall and onto wherever it goes. This would also bring the wetness mechanic into play again. I have only seen it a few times and it's a shame to not have more of it. For those that have not experienced it - go to coastal highway, head to thin ice and maybe once or a few times "in" and you'll see what happens ;) Be prepared for it though!!

Thunderstorms, lightning and freak chance of rain would be welcomed too.

LOVE THIS GAME !!

:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The number of sprains that occur and the ridiculous circumstances for some of them is highly annoying. I've hiked and camped in both New England and Alaska, once hauled nearly 100lbs of camera equipment up into the Chugach foothills, and have yet to ever experience a sprain. Yes, it's just a game, but it's centered on exploration, and having to either get hooked on painkillers, collect a few billion rose hips, or rest 4 hours for stumbling over a snowflake is a real downer in the game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The lack of keyboard shortcuts for actions and the inventory is my biggest complaint. It'd be nice to be able to bind keys to the different methods of sorting, the different categories of items, placing bedrolls, transferring items between containers and the inventory, and maybe some more I haven't thought of.

I couldn't agree with this more. I had an encounter with a wolf as I was trying to check out a cabin. I knew he was around there somewhere, so I tried to sneak around the other side. When I got closer to the cabin, I was searching for the wolf to try to keep some distance between us. The wolf popped over a small hill near me and I went into a panic. I tried to light my torch that was in my hands. Instead of left clicking - I right clicked and threw my unlit torch on the ground. I paused the game and face palmed a couple times as I was trying to figure out what to do. I knew my only chance was to try to resume the game and try to either search my inventory for my other spare torch or try to hit the number 1 and hope my torch pops up before I got jumped. I resumed the game, but I didn't get to my torch in time. Fortunately I didn't die, but was still a very intense moment! I really wish I could choose to bind my items to custom hotkeys!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The lack of keyboard shortcuts for actions and the inventory is my biggest complaint. It'd be nice to be able to bind keys to the different methods of sorting, the different categories of items, placing bedrolls, transferring items between containers and the inventory, and maybe some more I haven't thought of.

I couldn't agree with this more. I had an encounter with a wolf as I was trying to check out a cabin. I knew he was around there somewhere, so I tried to sneak around the other side. When I got closer to the cabin, I was searching for the wolf to try to keep some distance between us. The wolf popped over a small hill near me and I went into a panic. I tried to light my torch that was in my hands. Instead of left clicking - I right clicked and threw my unlit torch on the ground. I paused the game and face palmed a couple times as I was trying to figure out what to do. I knew my only chance was to try to resume the game and try to either search my inventory for my other spare torch or try to hit the number 1 and hope my torch pops up before I got jumped. I resumed the game, but I didn't get to my torch in time. Fortunately I didn't die, but was still a very intense moment! I really wish I could choose to bind my items to custom hotkeys!

Yeah! And it'd be cool if you could bind a key to take off all your clothes before brawling with a wolf on stalker, too... :mrgreen:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Getting rescued in sandbox mode would be awesome. Just make it very unlikely but not impossible. Even if society had collapsed there would still be a larger group of people over time that would get organised. Let those people have search parties every now and then. Let the player leave messages on trees or whatever or signs. Let them make fires on a hill on a clear day, ... things like that. Getting rescued would still be very unlikely ... but it could happen. Let's say when you have done the maximum toward getting noticed, there would be a ten percent chance they would notice you and send a rescue party. This way you have something to do late game ... something to stay alive for ... never mind the unlikeliness of a rescue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Getting rescued in sandbox mode would be awesome. Just make it very unlikely but not impossible. Even if society had collapsed there would still be a larger group of people over time that would get organised. Let those people have search parties every now and then. Let the player leave messages on trees or whatever or signs. Let them make fires on a hill on a clear day, ... things like that. Getting rescued would still be very unlikely ... but it could happen. Let's say when you have done the maximum toward getting noticed, there would be a ten percent chance they would notice you and send a rescue party. This way you have something to do late game ... something to stay alive for ... never mind the unlikeliness of a rescue.

sounds good, where do you go once rescued? maybe to a new map? that would be so cool. and you have to semi start all over again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

sounds good, where do you go once rescued? maybe to a new map? that would be so cool. and you have to semi start all over again.

I'm thinking that would be the end of your game but you also get a screen telling you what information about the region you have given to the collective that rescued you. You have been surviving on that part of the world and you now teach the collective how to do that, so maybe people can start living there, it is after all possible, you are the living proof. So your achievements could be used for how much you can teach the collective. You have explored 80% of the map? They know that much now. You have made tea from berries, you have 85% knowledge how to clean a rifle, build a fire, .... You know how to make a bow, clothing, ..... After that you start a new sandbox and you try to be an even better survivor, gather more experience and information for that time you are rescued ... if you are rescued at all. Maybe there could be a score, #number of people can survive in this region thanks to you; every time you are rescued and you have gathered more experience and intel that number of people that can survive in 'your' region goes up.

That way you are never really rescued, you got along fine before they showed up, but you pass along your experience so more people can survive whatever horrible thing happened to society.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Rescue? No way. The principal idea behind the game is that you are ALONE, and have only yourself to rely on. Don't mess with that, please. The ultimate goal then becomes achieving complete mastery of your existence, no longer faced with death nearly every moment because you've learned how to dodge those threats, successfully avoid or conquer them. If that becomes tedious, just start over, seems there would be a decent replay factor for most who enjoy the first time through.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My biggest gripe is definitely the way you get stuck on little bits of terrain and against objects. It's incredibly frustrating when you can't move forward because of some little bump or snowdrift that just happens to have a near-vertical edge, when your character should be able to just step over it!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

my clothes break from normal use to RUINED in 3 days??? what??

You've done something extremely wrong if your clothes ruined after 3 days of "normal" use. Perhaps you're just joking or not saying the truth. ;)

Accelerated clothing wear occurs outdoors during high winds in the game. It's not very realistic however it seems to be part of the game. I agree that it is frustrating.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.