Player to have more control in sandbox

[Axe]

What I really feel is needed in this game is an option for players to set the levels for amount of animals, resources, hunger, hydration, etc which the player can set when starting a sandbox.

These would work on sliding scales for example:

Animals on map: Rare - Low - Medium - High

Resources on map: Rare - Low - Medium - High

Starvation occurs: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 to 14 days

Dehydration occurs: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 days

Average temperature: Normal, Cold, Very Cold, Frozen

This will allow gamers to set up the game the way they'd prefer. Personally I find the appetite for food and water way above normal and would prefer the game to be more realistic. Therefore I'd prefer starvation happening at a long interval of 7-14 days, dehydration in 3 days, with very few animals and resources on the map which would mean I'd have to spend 2-3 days out in the snow with makeshift shelter trying to track a deer for my next meal, and low probability for fishing / ensnaring.

This will also allow those who treat the game as a hunting simulator to shoot everything they can by setting animals and resources to high.

Also typically there is a lot of water content in most food, so when you eat your hydration levels should actually increase a bit as well.

I'd also like an option to eat snow to increase hydration at the cost of getting cold.

[Revoltio]

I really like your idea with the perimeters that you can choose your own difficulty more precisely. I also like the thing with the water in the food because that's just realistic.

But eating snow? That's not a good idea in this cold places, because your needs very much energy to melt the snow in your mouth. By the way, you have to eat approximately 10 liters of snow to "drink" one liter water!

[toebar]

Welcome to the forums.

If you do a search, you'll find quite a few threads on this topic. The devs commented at one point that they did not favor increased customization, as they feel it's their job to provide an experience rather than providing the tools to have an experience.

In light of this, I suggest that 'Sandbox' mode would be better named as Survival mode, to avoid giving the impression that there may be customization options.

Currently, I think some foods do increase hydration-- e.g. peaches, tomato soup... But many of the foods quite dry so it makes sense that they don't add to hydration.

I do like the suggestion for eating snow at the cost of getting cold. I'm sure some will debate this option but if Les Stroud endorses this practice as a survival technique, then that is good enough for me

[toebar]

But eating snow? That's not a good idea in this cold places, because your needs very much energy to melt the snow in your mouth. By the way, you have to eat approximately 10 liters of snow to "drink" one liter water!

If you are moving and producing excess heat anyway (i.e. you are sweating), then melting a bit of snow is not a big issue, at least in real-life.

[cekivi]

Eating snow is also a good way to cool down your core if you're at risk of sweating. Another Les Stroud favourite is "you sweat, you die". Hence why he advocates eating snow provided you're doing an activity that's generating a lot of body heat.

However, since sweating is not currently being modeled (and I don't think it's planned?) I doubt eating snow will make it into the game.

[toebar]

Eating snow is also a good way to cool down your core if you're at risk of sweating. Another Les Stroud favourite is "you sweat, you die". Hence why he advocates eating snow provided you're doing an activity that's generating a lot of body heat.

However, since sweating is not currently being modeled (and I don't think it's planned?) I doubt eating snow will make it into the game.

True-- moving doesn't generate much heat in game, so there's nothing to offset the drop in core temp. It would be an interesting game mechanic, but might make things more complicated than necessary.. (meaning both eating snow and sweating)

[cekivi]

This is one of the reasons I'm curious whether The Long Dark will have modding capability or Steam Workshop integration. I can see a lot of changes that the wider community wouldn't like but certain people would really enjoy.

For instance, I would turn the game into a survival/hunting simulator

[toebar]

This is one of the reasons I'm curious whether The Long Dark will have modding capability or Steam Workshop integration. I can see a lot of changes that the wider community wouldn't like but certain people would really enjoy.

For instance, I would turn the game into a survival/hunting simulator

I hadn't thought much about this, but it does seem like a good idea from this perspective. Difficulty sliders, as suggested in the OP, are certainly more suited to a true simulator.

[veraziul]

These would work on sliding scales for example:

Animals on map: Rare - Low - Medium - High

Resources on map: Rare - Low - Medium - High

Starvation occurs: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 to 14 days

Dehydration occurs: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 days

Average temperature: Normal, Cold, Very Cold, Frozen

You just made Hinterland create an infinite survival sandbox, man. Nice.

Lemme guess your specs?

Animals: Rare

Resources: High

Starvation: 14 days

Dehydration: 4 days

Avg. temp.: Normal

They'd have to rephrase the slogan "How long can you survive?" With "How long till you're bored of the picnic?"

[toebar]

They'd have to rephrase the slogan "How long can you survive?" With "How long till you're bored of the picnic?"

:lol: well played sir. I fully acknowledge that some people would like to be able to customize their game to this level. But I also see why Hinterland is not interested in going this way (so far anyway), and I agree with their approach.... at least it avoids the scenario you suggest.

Though, to be fair, there was a good thread about a 4th difficulty setting that would best be described as 'realistic' (low number of animals and resources, but with other settings similar to Stalker, to make the environment the main challenge, instead of wolves---which is somewhat where I think the OP wanted to go).

[cekivi]

Though, to be fair, there was a good thread about a 4th difficulty setting that would best be described as 'realistic' (low number of animals and resources, but with other settings similar to Stalker, to make the environment the main challenge, instead of wolves---which is somewhat where I think the OP wanted to go).

Thanks for the archive link toebar. That would be a really cool difficulty to have. I'll agree that it wouldn't be for everyone but I personally would prefer having to worry more about the weather than the wolves. Heck, if animals were more scarce I would probably start missing the wolves and the deer that they kill for me!

[Axe]

The idea is to make it possible to turn the game into a survival simulator. The sort of settings i'd be looking for would be as follows:

Animals - Rare (more realistic)

Resources - Low (less than what there is at the moment to make exploration of the entire map essential, which fits in with the hunting)

Starvation - 7 to 14 days (more realistic)

Dehydration - 3 days (more realistic)

Temperature - Very cold

The whole point is to make the game capable of being a realistic survival game, I want to battle the elements and resources, and struggle to find food, but I just can't immerse myself in a game where I can literally die from hunger in 2 days or from dehydration in 1 day, let's be honest now that's just silly. Although the amount of food and water i'm consuming a day is absurd to say the least, other than that though the rest of the game is absolutely brilliant and the devs have really got a solid game here.

But it may not be what everyone else is looking for, therefore the slider's will allow the game to be what other people want the game to be for them. Allowing players to customize their sandbox will enable them to play the type of game they want. The idea here is to make the game appeal to a larger audience, isn't that the whole idea behind a sandbox? Leave the strict game rules for the single player campaign that's what it's there for.

We're so close to getting a realistic survival simulator I feel we can't miss the opportunity to make it just that.

The whole point of playing a game like this is to get away from all those arcade style, zombie bashing survival games that focus on game elements like shooting stuff and being attacked all the time by zombies/animals/other players, stuff like that doesn't happen in real life, people just watch way too much tv. To come this close to a true survival experience and turn it away would be such a shame.

The only reason I suggested eating snow, is again it's hard to believe someone will die from dehydration when they are literally covered and standing in water (snow). If you were stuck in a desert yes dehydration is a very real problem. Even having to use water purification tablets seems unnecessary since rain water / snow is potable, especially in snow since any bacterial life-forms would not be capable of staying alive in such cold temperatures. River water in the tropics yes you'll need to purify/boil it as there'll be all sorts of bacteria and nasties living in there.

[Ms Nutcracker]

I agree with Axe we can't let this opportunity die out!

An example of what Axe has suggested is from Arma 3 and their mods with their Ai you can adjust the Ai to what you want it to be. So this can happen also with what sort of realism players want from the game! They could be preset or advance preset to allow players to play the game how they want!

Perhaps player could have fun and tip the balance of predators to prey! or change how plants die or grow in advance options. perhaps even change seasons and if you need food or not?

However the core mechanics needs to be there for slider to be worth it because there is still much to add to the game to turn it into the best survival realistic game out there!

+1 to nasties in water but its not in the game at the moment where there really are bacteria in the water it just a static knowledge.

[toebar]

The idea is to make it possible to turn the game into a survival simulator.

It's not a simulator, nor is it intended to be one... so I don't see the devs adding the option to make it one. But, as previously suggested, if the modding option was permitted perhaps that is the best solution.

As for eating/drinking snow, I agree with you. It's not that people die from dehydration in snowy places-- it's that they eat a bunch of snow and then freeze to death.

There is a long-standing survival 'rule' that you should not eat snow, because takes a lot of energy to melt, and can cool you core temp, making it easier to become hypothermic and freeze to death. That's why I said that eating it while generating heat (moving) is fine. You just would not want to do it if you were cold already, or if you are sitting still. Also, it needs to be done with care, as you can cause blisters/sores inside your mouth due to the coldness and roughness of the snow--- sounds trivial, but any injury in a survival situation is serious.

In terms of potability, I also agree with you that snow is clean enough to drink without purifying. Its been brought up before. I don't know exactly why the devs did it this way. Perhaps to make getting water more difficult?..not sure. Really it would have been better to just make melting the snow take longer.

Here's the quote that I referred to earlier. I think that is pretty hopeful

[quadgamer]

I totally agree. People don't die from not sleeping for 24 hours. And, I believe, death from starvation and dehydration takes longer as well. So, I would love to be able to set my own parameters. I've been looking for a good PC survival game. I found it in The Long Dark. I just hope some of these ideas get implemented into the game. It would make it that much better.

[Axe]

This is really such a great game, it has so many good ideas and has an awesome artistic style to it.

This game is based on survival and makes use of realistic challenges a survivor would face, I feel in the case of some the hazards like hunger and dehydration the game is only made weaker when implemented in a an arcade game style of die when the clock reaches zero food (I want to focus on survival, not on my health bar).

Rather implement a system where your character is weaker (not able to sprint for long), needs more sleep (like oversleeping) or increased failure rates for performing tasks (I'm weaker), or tasks take longer to perform, I get dizzy when walking for long periods. I don't want to experience these things because they interfere with what I want to do, so I must eat to avoid it.

I must therefore ‘play’ the game harder in order to survive (explore, hunt, search <-- I want to do these things!). The idea of hunger is great! I just think the implementation needs some work. Making food more scarce and smaller portions would be a much better system than eating 2 wolf steaks, a rack of deer ribs, a granola bar, 2 cans of soda pop and then dropping over dead from hunger like 2 days later. I’ve proposed one method in which the issue can be addressed in the original post and another in the previous paragraph, if other players can come up with some more ideas that would be awesome.

A game whose game play is largely based on realism, i.e. real life hazards (hunger, dehydration, cold and fatigue) is diminished by starving from lack of food in an truly unbelievable short period of time. This really impacts a players ability to immerse themselves in the game, in this instance the risk of hunger can’t be made more real by making it more urgent, it just doesn't align well because the danger is so forced that it is not believable.

It is also made very apparent when other aspects of the game are made so realistic, and then starvation and to an extent dehydration just stand out and you think to yourself, 'why would they come so close and then not go all the way?'

I reached a point where I literally had to stop playing the game and then write the original post about it. The first 2 days in the game were absolute gold I felt the solitude, the fear, the panic, the desperation, disorientation, I believed and felt immersed and then suddenly the realistic aspects I thought were there just disappeared and the starvation/dehydration mechanics just become so apparent and unrealistic, it's like waking up from an awesome dream and then realising it was just that, a dream.

I want to play this game, I want to feel the danger, the desperation all of it, I want to be immersed, but to achieve that the game must be believable. MAKE ME BELIEVE!!!