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Hello! Not sure if anyone will read this, but over a few days I have come up with a system that I think would be amazing in The Long Dark; It may sound crazy, but I came up with an idea to add a whole different ‘condition’ (eg hunger, thirst, fatigue, temperature). I call it ‘Mentality’ but I just pulled that out of who knows where... If we think about the game logically, of course your character would be going crazy being so isolated and alone: we see a tiny glimpse of this with the ‘Cabin Fever’ affliction. I think that after being secluded for too long would drive you crazy: now, the way to ‘cure’ craziness is through reading books, reading buffer memories, perhaps drinking some herbal tea, looking at posters etc. now for the repercussions of Mentality; perhaps as the bar filled up your character would get distracted by doing everyday tasks (eg repairing, fishing, cooking etc). As it deteriorated perhaps your player would, dare I say, begin inflicting self-harm. This would of course not be PG, so perhaps there could be an option at the beginning of a game to enable/disable it... anyway, this was just a random thought, and I doubt anyone will see it!

I've been playing this game for a little while now and my little brother has been watching me play and my brother and I have been wanting a online mode it does matter if it's split screen or not. It would still be cool if it wasn't split screen he could use my older brothers console. There should only be a maximum of two players, I think if there where anymore it would make it difficult to find the supplies necessary to survive.

So this is literally the most photogenic game I've ever played and while taking screenshots during gameplay is already amazing, since hinterland has seemed to nail 3d modeling characters I have a suggestion. A true photo mode. Where we can zoom out and catch our character in the shot in 3rd person in a variety of poses and be able to alter the camera. Poses would include our survivor standing holding tools or weapons, and perhaps "combat" poses where he might be flinching or aiming the revolver, holding his hatchet up ready to attack, etc. for photos involving hostile wildlife. What y'all think?

So I just finished the 3rd episode and the game just ended, is there anymore story in the works or is it just over? Plus I never once saw a weapons work bench like ever, I found only one gunpowder is all my playing time. I just have lots of questions about this whole ordeal. Is the game just over? Story wise

This may not be the best place to discuss this but... I know there's a save editor. I have used it when I destroyed something I didn't mean to, stuff like that. I'm pretty sure the saves can be edited as json files... so, with that information, should there be, in theory, a way to add things into your save at a specific location? Say, replacing that gun rack you destroyed in the trapper's lodge? Just gotta know the object info, and one can always trial-and-error the XYZ coords.... Thoughts? eta: I know this tool exists but the save files contain player data only, not environments.

Hey all, Hopefully I'm posting this correctly, if not my bad. I've been streaming casual playthroughs of TLD on my Twitch channel, I play Stalker mode, and usually it's just talking to chat as we see what happens to our protagonist in the game and their eventual demise. Whether you'd like to talk strategy, or your own experiences, or just want to pass by and say hi while the game is on, please feel free to! Also looking forward to check out other streams if you happen to be streaming as well and dont mind the company, since we all know how lonely this game can make you feel, haha. Thanks for taking the time to check out the post! my channel is:

Hey! So I just started playing The Long Dark on Xbox due to computer issues and I feel like I’m spraining my ankles way too much. I’ve sprained my ankles collectively 4 times, and my wrist 1 time, all within the first 24ish hours of ingame time. I don’t remember it being anywhere near this bad on computer, I basically can’t go anywhere without getting a sprain. I usually get them while walking on inclines. It just feels way too frequent, and I’m not sure if this is a bug, something unique to the Xbox Version or a new feature with Errant Pilgrim. Has anyone else encountered this? Or an I just very unlucky? Its quite debilitating. Sometimes moving into the hills is the only way to avoid a bear or wolf, and since my game just began & they often concentrate around choke points, I often don’t have much of a choice but to take the high around and try and go around them. And then of course, I sprain my ankle. Consistantly enough that I know this will happen whenever I climb a hill. It doesn’t even have to be climbing on a hill— I could just be walking on a slight incline. Maybe least add snowshoes or a hiking skill to decrease the liklihood?

I just completed Hopeless Rescue in 15 hours 31 minutes without using any glitches or skips. What's your fastest time?

Hello my name is Kush here me out and please give feed back suggestions or at least let me know wat u think but I was thinking of a balanced way u could add transportation to the game u could do a dog sled maybe at a key place on the map maybe like mountain town farm u can find two dogs and have an accept or not accept button when u accept the now need to be fed and watered in order to not die...... in the barn there's a broken dog sled u must fix and not easy to do either lots of wood and gut to repair........ the dogs serve no purpose but the sled itself so add no other bonuses and yes makes travel easier but will not be easy to sustain and wonse the dogs are gone they are gone so someone who tries to get it to early will most likely loss the ability for their late game make specific tansittion trails l....long trails not be confused with foot paths so u will probably not make the transition on these trails on foot unless equipped for it u can make it so it doesn't work well on rough terrain and ur not climbing hills with a two dog. Sled just to make nomadding and transporting meat and items late game to different spots and making a trip for broken railroad to desolation point not a trip that takes half ur food supply wat do u guys think would appreciate feed back

I'm at 125 days in a Stalker game with nothing left to do. I haven't been to Hush River Valley, but what for? I have every tool and every weapon, except the rifle which I don't use. I'm almost maxed out on clothes (Warmth Bonus 31, Wind bonus 11, Protection 50). The only thing I'm missing is a second Cowichan sweater and I'm not sure there is more than one available in any given game. I'm maxed with a bow and 3 or better on other skills, except the rifle. I've killed 3 moose, two bears, more than 100 wolves plus many deer and rabbits. My point is, as much as I love the game, once you have everything, much of the allure is gone. When you start a new game with a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap, finding that first wool took is a big deal. So is finding you first knife, but now there's nothing left to find so what's the point? I'm sure I'm not the only one who has run into this. So what do you do? Do you just start a new game or what? Also, do you have any ideas of how the game could evolve so there would be useful life beyond 120 days or so?

I've been watching youtubers play The long dark, for awhile. I've always wanted to play it, but I don't have access to any of the consoles the game supports. PS4, Xbox one, Microsoft windows, ect. So I was wondering if The long dark will be available on nintendo switch? It would give switch players who don't know the game, get familiar with it and maybe purchase it, giving the game new publicity and players or it could give people like me, who don't have other consoles, still being able to play such a interesting and creative game. I hope you take my suggestion into consideration, and I look forward for this game to expand and continue its success.

So I have a few ideas I would love to see in this game. For starters multiplayer but I'm sure this has been said a million times but let me pose this question, what good is a 6 burner stove in a community hall with no friends to share it with?! Beyond that, I would like to see a mode that is more subsistence living. Less processed foods like can goods and such but more ammo, fishing gear and A NEW ACTIVITY. ... growing food! So first and foremost, it would give us more things to scavenge for, like fertile ground, which could be found in a variety of places, seeds and or items (potatoes specifically) and gardening tools. Now I know you're asking, how would this work? You cannot grow things in the cold! Correct, thus we would need new buildings. Not changing buildings just adding some to key points in the map. Now these building would work in many regards to make long game more sustainable, they would be like the lookouts, you can easily see through the windows, but more importantly sun can get through the windows. These buildings would have grow boxes inside them that can be filled with fertile dirt and seeds watered for xx days and produce vegetables. Now resource management is going to be key because you have yo keep the shelter warm to grow plants, so wood will be key to fuel the fireplace that will take part of one wall of these buildings while the remaining walls are made of glass much like the hut in PV (I believe that's where it is but may be wrong) have a cot in the corner and two large storage hatches inside to hold tons of gear for the long game. And best of all to make the sunlight effect work and also make it critical in determining when to hunt and travel by seeing your surroundings no load screen entrance but still have the perks of curing pelts. Making this would be intended as being a main base camp location in each map so having it in a nice central location would be great however there must be some work to reach it, but it still needs access to game for proteins. I wouldn't want work benches at them as then there would be no point to spending anytime in any other locations. C'mon hinterland this would be a game changer for sure, but for the better!

A little background first, my apologies. I've been playing LD from right when EP 2 came out. I love the game, so much so I bought it for PC and XBOX. I usually play interloper and I was having my best run yet. I was at day 100 , my previous longest run was 64 days. So I'm in BR and I want to leave and start making all the zones but I see my bearskin beadroll is at 26%. Damn I need the bear by the river dead. So I run down and kill and quarter him. I run the hide to the lodge and wait...and wait...and wait. While I'm waiting I finish mapping BR but then the next 5 days I start going stir crazy, I had killed everything in the zone and there was nothing left for days. So I thought that there should be a faster way to cure hides. I thought hey why not put salt in the game so you can cure hides faster. Then I thought of salting meat to preserve it and 'fix' cooking 5. Here is how I thought it could work. Salt would be lootable and you could get it from nature. I was thinking that since FM never really freezes it must have brackish water. So on a ice section you could get some water with a can or pot and cook off the water. It would be a semi rare loot item, like whetstones. For curing hides. Salt would cut in half the curing time of hides. You would use 0.5kg on rabbit hides, 1.0kg on deer and wolf hides, and 2.5kg on bear and moose. This is completely optional to do the hides cure regularly indoors without salt but this just makes it quicker. Now onto cooking. IMHO cooking 5 is insane. I like the fact that I can no longer get intestinal parasites. No really I love that, F$&# IP. But the more food poisoning, that's a bit much. When I first got cooking 5 I thought wow this is awesome I can eat anything. After the 100th ruined cooked bear steak it got ridiculous. Ruined meat is ruined, no fixing that. But if you salted it you could preserve it forever if you also keep it outside. Also you could make jerky out of small bits of meat, like 0.5kg. This way you could carry some meat with you and not have scent. I was just a thought from a fan. Keep up the good work and please stay healthy. Lupesco

I'm not going to write this as a totally comprehensive and well-structured review but more as just spouting out a bunch of things that stood out to me, what I liked and disliked. I won't touch on every single thing and every single character, just the main things I wanted to get across. Here's some things I liked: I love how the overall weather in this episode is harder than in the previous episodes. Pleasant Valley is infamous for having some of the worst, if not the worst weather in the game. The cold is much more of a problem in this zone. Not only is it colder than other zones, but the zone itself is so vast. You have to trek across vast distances with the threat of hypothermia encroaching every step you take. It adds more tension to every moment in the story. The Canadian frozen wilderness is more than just a setting, it's literally out to kill you and make your life hell. It's in a sense, the main villain. In a story mode, this kind of cold weather mechanic adds so much. No other game does cold weather survival as well as TLD. Astrid. A lot of people find her inner monologue annoying, but I've always found it charming. I enjoyed hearing Jennifer Hale's wonderful voice acting throughout this episode and I think she did a fantastic job. It's easy to take for granted just how well every single line of dialogue is delivered because it all feels so natural. I'm going to agree with HadrianLP in that I miss the old recording of the line "I'll die if I don't warm up soon!". But I see what she was going for with the new version. She is so overwhelmed with cold that she can barely even say the line and in that aspect it comes across so well. As far as the character of Astrid herself, I find her likeable enough and I appreciate her selflessness and natural instinct to help others. She is not just a Mary Sue. She's not perfect and has issues. She and Will have a somewhat strange and still not yet explained relationship, but they were/are? married. And they had a falling out of some kind which I'm sure will be explained later down the line. But despite that, she still clearly cares for him at least a little bit. She and Will are trying to find each other not because they are in love, but because their very survival and others' survival depends on it. And I find that to be a far more compelling way to create tension through separation than just because they love each other or used to be in love. It is made clear through her dialogue with Thomas that she is not religious, which I guess even for a doctor I find that somewhat surprising. But for me, that just makes her character even more interesting and makes you wonder who or what she lives for as she struggles to survive. She is clearly made out to be an exceptionally physically strong character, willing to risk her life for the sake of others. She can survive through the harshest blizzards, tangle with the most vicious wolves, and lug people on her back across the map. More on that later. Overall, Astrid is an awesome character. The side quests. After 100%-ing the entire episode. I now know to do these before doing too much of the main missions. They're pretty fun and the rewards are pretty awesome and gives you a huge advantage out there in PV. More than once, my mouth was left agape whenever I opened a bag and saw what my reward was. My favorite of all the side quests is definitely the one with the giant bass. He is HUGE! I posted a screenshot of him on Steam not mentioning that it was story mode and not sandbox and a couple people already commented thinking it was a sandbox fish. I found that highly amusing. The side quests do a great job of padding out the episode and adding life to the story, but not enough. And now the not so good (With some good in the beginning still): I did not find the whole gathering Whiteout-esque stocking objective as offensive as some others. It's actually quite easy and everything you need is easy to come by. It's just a matter of doing it. But it is admittedly still tedious, especially having already done something similar in episode one. But for this situation in the story, it feels completely appropriate at least. One of the objectives I did have a problem with was the whole thing of rescuing the three survivors. The first time when I rescued Gwen from the plane crash was quite a great story moment I thought. Her clearly frostbitten face and hands were frightening to look at, she's been stuck out in the cold for so long and she was on the verge of death. I realized I could diagnose her like the others in the town hall, and when I carried her, I could see her own needs meters and manage them on top of my own. I thought that was extremely cool and a pretty clever idea. As I carried her, I could constantly hear her heartbeat, the very thing keeping her alive. By the time I headed down with her on my back, it was dusk and it was getting dark and foggy very quickly. I began to realize the danger of my situation. It was pitch black outside and very foggy and I couldn't see, and there were wolves. I had to somehow find a way to get her to safety through all that. It was one of the most genuinely tense and scary moments I had in this episode and I loved it. (I used the in-game map to help me but let's not mention I did that!). That was great the first time, not so much the next three times. It simply sucks carrying three people halfway across the map to safety, none of whom are strong enough to walk themselves. At least one of those survivors should've been strong enough to walk with you and even help fend off wolves for you. I realize that would take A LOT of animation work, but come on! I feel like in terms of story, immersion, and character development, a lot of opportunities were missed. One problem I have is with Father Thomas and the whole community center setup. He is one of the main people you talk to and he is a priest. I would think you'd get more than a few chances to talk about faith with him. Astrid is not religious, but that gives even more reason to explore her views on faith with Thomas and more opportunities for interesting dialogue with him. Not just "You need to go out there and save these people, my child." It would've just helped so much to make him feel more like a useful character rather than just someone there who's seemingly important and wise but all he does is tell you to go places while he stands there in the building watching over these people but not really being that useful. And let's talk about these people. The survivors from the plane crash site. It's quite a stark view to walk into the community center for the first time and see all these people wrapped up in bedrolls coughing and crying out softly. It works for the first few days, then you realize that's all they do 24/7: Stay bundled up in their beds coughing and crying. I suppose there's a good reason for it because they just got out of a nightmare plane crash situation and stumbled their way across the dangerous wolf infested wilderness and the freezing cold. They were lucky to survive. But not a single person manages to gather the strength to at least sit up or stand up and walk around a little bit. You never get a chance to talk to any of the survivors and get to know them. What's the point in rescuing and helping all these people if they don't even feel like people? Yes they're sick and shaken, but they never say a word to you. All these people and you can't talk to them. All these opportunities for dialogue, immersing you into the world, and character development are completely missed. No one gathers back their strength and makes themselves useful. They're all weak. There should've been at least one or two others out of the survivors with some fortitude out there helping them survive, helping Astrid in her mission. You're the only damn person who's proving to be useful at all. Yes, Father Thomas gathered these people here in the first place. But as soon as you show up, he does nothing but stand around and it just makes him feel like he's useless even though he really truly isn't. And with the survivors gathering back their strength, that gives even more opportunities for interesting story moments. Maybe one day you find out one of the survivors who you've gotten to know went hunting and died to a timberwolf attack, and you find his ravaged body eaten to almost a skeleton, surrounded by a pack of wolves. Just something like that to add more to the story and to exploit this truly dangerous and fascinating situation that has been created by the writers. Right now, the way this community center situation has been presented to us, it just makes the story feel a bit too empty and hollow, and makes you feel like the only damn person doing any work. Yes, Astrid is selfless and doesn't do it for recognition, but as a player from the outside, it annoys me. And I can't give the benefit of the doubt to everything I find problematic. I get that it would've been a huge effort to implement these suggestions in, but I think it would've been worth it. It may sound relatively simple on paper, but it's truly not. I feel like overall, for me personally, I think they're trying to tell the wrong kind of story for what this game is. It's not bad by any means, it's just a bit incompatible. This game was originally created for story, but everyone knows the bread and butter of The Long Dark is the survival mode. This game is one of the best games out there in terms of pure survival, no zombies or cannibals, just nature. (And of course vicious wolves who want to eat your face.) The more I play this story mode, the more I wish it could have been more about pure survival. Just being out there, lost and trying to survive by yourself. Not all this other stuff. I understand that with that kind of story, it wouldn't separate itself all that well from the plain sandbox mode and probably just wouldn't have been as interesting and compelling compared to the story we are getting. But I can't help but wish, because I feel that kind of story has potential too if done in the right way, and would fit in line better with what to me is the true spirit of The Long Dark in my own opinion.

How do you guys play out a long term survival? Obviously this is very subjective and I'm wondering if my system can be improved. Key things to consider. I'm on stalker, I survived my first 40 days at Coastal Highway and have now declared the camp office at mystery lake my new home for the past 7 days So here's my situation: I tend to accumulate a whole bunch of food before cooking it so I can cook in bulk. This means less fires and more matches being saved in the long run. When possible, I even have a fire outside and use the magnifying lens to start that fire and then use the torch to start my better fire inside. I fish at the lakes and snare the rabbits further upstream in the treeline and if need be hunt deer (im not a level 5 cook so i can still afflict parasites from predatory meat). All my meat im not using gets dropped outside behind the camp office. Just wondering, is this the best way to survive long term, turtling and saving matches? Or do you guys prefer to keep moving and cook as you go along?

I´ve posted a video were Mr. Bear keeps away because a fire, i thought i was a bug but now i can confirmed that this is a new behaviour. Would be nice if this kind of changes would be announced in the changelogs after the updates...

The things I'd love to see in TLD. Particularly Survival Mode cause the possibilities are limitless 🙂 We should be able to craft a Sling and a Slingshot. For a Sling, you can use a cured gut and a piece of cloth. For a Slingshot, a couple sticks, a cured gut and a piece of cloth. There are plenty of stones for ammunition so no worries there. As for guns, perhaps a hunting shotgun and shotgun shells. To complete a trio of guns suitable for surviving the cold. We should also have binoculars. To look far and wide of our surroundings. There so be more wildlife as well. Foxes, beavers, racoons, mountain lions, bobcats and bisons. What we should have is some bird life. Especially to hunt for food, guts and feathers. The Canada Goose will be great. Along with the Harlequin Duck, Red-tailed Hawk, Whooping Crane and the Great Horned Owl.

Hello, I've always loved nature and the outdoors. Living in Alaska and Montana, I've spent many nights outdoors, in all sorts of shelters. I've encountered much wildlife, and caught many fish who's size was usually exaggerated, if not seen by others. I've always been a big admirer of bears. I also know, if you try to shoot a grizzly in the head with a pistol... It will bounce off. And you will experience a very painful mauling The Bear A poem by Robert Frost And draws it down as if it were a lover And its chokecherries lips to kiss good-by, Then lets it snap back upright in the sky. Her next step rocks a boulder on the wall (She's making her cross-country in the fall). Her great weight creaks the barbed wire in its staples As she flings over and off down through the maples, Leaving on one wire tooth a lock of hair. Such is the uncaged progress of the bear. The world has room to make a bear feel free; The universe seems cramped to you and me. Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage, That all day fights a nervous inward rage, His mood rejecting all his mind suggests. He paces back and forth and never rests The me-nail click and shuffle of his feet, The telescope at one end of his beat, And at the other end the microscope, Two instruments of nearly equal hope, And in conjunction giving quite a spread. Or if he rests from scientific tread, 'Tis only to sit back and sway his head Through ninety-odd degrees of arc, it seems, Between two metaphysical extremes. He sits back on his fundamental butt With lifted snout and eyes (if any) shut (He almost looks religious but he's not), And back and forth he sways from cheek to cheek, At one extreme agreeing with one Greek At the other agreeing with another Greek Which may be thought, but only so to speak. A baggy figure, equally pathetic When sedentary and when peripatetic.

The idea of a cougar or other big cat predator is not a new one, I've seen it (and even put in my two cents once before) many times on the wish list and I think it merits some real thought by the developers. Below, I'll cover my personal in depth take on a cougar in TLD and how it could fit in with the current threat creatures. To start off, cougars would be at least as rare as moose are, if not more rare, with only a handful spawning in any given game. There could only be one in any given region and similar to moose their passive behavior would be to patrol a small area around their den. This area could be marked similarly to how moose areas are, but with less obvious scratch markings on trees. Central to this area would be a den, a small and hard to notice mini-cave that would be its own enterable area. It would be small, smaller than any non-transition zone cave with the chance to spawn a frozen corpse, evidence of a cougar's previous meal. The cougar would operate in one of four different states: Patrolling, Stalking, Hunting, and Fleeing In its Patrolling mode, the cougar AI would have two 'sense' rings around it. Maybe 100 meters and 75 meters in diameter. If the player enters the first ring they might receive some sort of audio/visual cue (anything from the character mumbling something or a message similar to the thin ice warning) letting them know that there is a cougar nearby. There also might not be a cue for a more difficult cougar. In either case, if the player lingers in this first ring they will eventually be detected by the cougar and if they enter the second ring at any time they will automatically be detected by the cougar. At this point, the cougar goes into its stalking state. In Stalking mode, the cougar has detected the player and will actively pursue them from a distance. The AI will try to position the cougar behind and a certain distance away from the player, and if the cougar is within the player's viewing area it will not move. There, again, might or might not be some sort of cue that the player is being stalked. Perhaps the world sound volume would decrease with the player's footstep volume increasing, something subtle that might not be very noticeable. To end a cougar's stalking mode the player would need to either leave the region for a few days, aim at the cougar (in which case it would retreat beyond view distance and there would be a small random chance that it would revert back to patrolling mode), hit the cougar with a projectile weapon (in which it would go into fleeing mode), or drop a decoy which may revert the cougar back to patrolling mode. While in stalking mode, the player is still very much safe from the cougar. However, if they get a certain number of afflictions/debuffs (anything from being overburdened to a sprained limb, to parasites) then a stalking cougar will go into hunting mode. In Hunting mode the cougar will try to attack the player from behind, charging at them on quiet paws. Marine flares will keep the cougar from charging, but torches, fires, and road flares won't deter it. Distress Pistol rounds will cause it to flee and revert back to stalking mode, and a direct hit with a projectile weapon will cause it to flee or die (if a critical shot is made). If the cougar's charge is successful, a two-stage QTE struggle ensues. In the first stage, the cougar pins the player onto their chest and begins attacking from behind. The player needs to manipulate their movement keys to unpin themself and roll over. Once successful, the second stage is the same as any wolf struggle, with the player given a choice of tools to use to beat the cougar away. During the struggle, all clothing items take damage and debuffs such as bleeding, lacerations, sprains, and the like can be taken by the player. If the player manages to defeat the cougar, it will go into fleeing mode. Cougars will not bleed out, though they will leave blood trails for a player to follow. Instead, in Fleeing mode, a cougar will return to its den for a certain number of days and will wait there to heal back up before reverting back to patrolling mode. In order for a player to kill the cougar, they'll need to get an instant kill with their weapon of choice or pursue a fleeing cougar back to its den. After entering the den, the cougar will give a warning yowl before charging. If the player is fast enough, a successful hit will kill the cougar. Otherwise, they will have to engage in a final wolf-style struggle to kill the cougar. Cougars will yield a good portion of guts and wolf-like lower calorie meat. The true prize will be their pelt, which can be crafted into two very useful items. The two items I thought up for cougar-coat crafting are the Cougar Cloak and the Cougar Bedroll. Both would require a single cougar pelt with some other items to craft. Cougar Cloak: unlike the moose-hide cloak, which goes in the outer layer slots, the Cougar Cloak would go in the accessories slot with the wool ear wraps and moose-hide satchel. It would offer some warmth, wind resistance, armor, and water-proofness but be obviously heavier than the ear wraps and only work in the outer slot. Its main bonus would be a smell-resistance, where the first scent bar is blacked out and anything that would raise a player's scent bar by one would be effectively negated. Cougar Bedroll: the cougar bedroll would be a middle-grade bedroll, with warmth and weight stats putting it between the bearskin and basic bedrolls. It wouldn't increase wolf fear as much as the bearskin version, but it would protect against animal attacks.

Yesterday I posted my idea on how to rework pain on the TheLongDark subreddit . People seem to mostly like the idea and someone suggested I should also post it on here. I really feel pain needs some reworking so here is the post bellow: I feel like in it's current implementation, pain is just a small annoyance rather than something you should treat. For those unaware, pain can be healed by either using Painkillers or Rose Hip Tea or by waiting 4 hours. I personally end up just waiting out the 4 hours and hoarding painkillers. This makes me feel like that painkillers are not as important anymore. A couple updates ago, before sprains were reworked, you had to use Painkillers/Rose Hip Tea to heal sprains. This however is no longer the case and all you need is a bandage. Now, I am not saying to add the use of painkillers for the treatment of sprains again, but I have a different idea. How about reworking pain and adding levels of pain (Maybe about 5 levels)? Smaller injuries don't hurt much (level 1) while severe injuries hurt a lot (Example: Burns or Mauled by a Bear = Level 5). The level should affect some interactions, crafting, harvesting and so on taking longer for example. Make sleep recover less fatigue since you are basically trying to rest with pain, which is hard to do irl. But to balance this out you can decrease the time it takes for the pain to heal while resting. Also should add a new red gradient border for the edge of the screen that gets more intense the higher the pain level (remove blur for it). You could either have one very painful injury on one body part, or smaller less painful injuries that would stack the overall pain level. Pain however should not exceed Level 5. Levels of Pain: 1: Barely hurts (Example: Smaller fall damage without sprains. Short duration: 30 min. Interaction time increase: 5%. Slight red border.) 2: Hurting (Example: Headache from Energy Drinks. Modest duration: 1 hour. Interaction time increase: 10%. A bit more noticeable red border) 3: Hurts quite a lot (Example: Sprains. Medium Duration: 4 hours. Interaction time increase: 20%. Very noticeable red border.) 4: Painful (Example: Wolf Bite. Longer Duration: 12 hours. Interaction time increase: 40%. Strong red border.) 5. Extreme Pain (Example: Mauled by Bear, Burns, Broken Ribs. Longest Duration: 24 - 48 hours. Interaction time increase: 50%. Very strong red border.) (All these are just examples, it of course would not be up to me to decide the values) Now when it comes to healing these with painkillers, being mauled and such would require Morphine possibly to instantly heal that pain (new rare item maybe?), so to heal a Level 5 Pain level you'd need at least 2 pills to drop down to Level 4 and another 2 after some time passed to drop to Level 3. From Level 3 you can immediately cure it after some more time passed. Example: Level 5 Pain = 2 Painkillers or 1 Rose Hip Tea -> Level 4 Pain -> Wait 1 hour -> Take 2 more pills or 1 Rose Hip Tea -> Level 3 Pain -> Wait 1 hour -> Take 2 more pills or 1 Rose Hip Tea -> Pain healed or at least Pain Level 1 (can be 50:50 chance). If Morphine would become a thing (Possible spawns would be high chance in medical lockers and very small chance in first aid cabinets) then the pain should instantly drop down to Pain Level 1 or completely heals it, however with the side effect of blurred vision and impact on your aim (note that blur would be exclusive to the morphine effect then and overrides the slight red border of Level 1 pain). So I wanna know what everyone else thinks. I personally really like my idea, but it's ultimately Hinterland's choice.

Hello, I think it would be cool to bring back the original journal UI design where it actually looked like a journal, I found it to be really unique and now it just feels generic and makes me not want to write in it. If they make it look like a journal again that would be really awesome!

Hello, fellow survivors. Preface Everything I suggest here should be taken as that: a suggestion, even if I don’t explicitly state every single time that I intend it to be a suggestion. Also I do not claim to be better at designing a game than its proven to be successful game designers. But I play the game, frequently, in depth and at a fairly high level, and hence I think I can allow myself to make suggestions how to improve it. What I do suggest is an alternative path to make long term survival harder - alternative to the drastically “improved” Wolf AI. Apparently the developers see a need to adjust the viability of long term survival, and to a certain degree I agree. What I do not agree with are the means this is sought to be achieved. Not because the resulting challenge is too hard, but because it alienates long standing players and in many aspects betrays established core concepts of the game. Also I do not tackle Timberwolves in this intentionally. They are their own fish to fry, and as such do not apply to most of the game as it stands being restricted to Bleak Inlet which I personally consider to be “in beta” as much as the Timberwolves themselves. Finally: not all of those ideas are mine. In fact they are more a compendium of good suggestions from an amazing community that has a lot of great ideas to improve their favorite game. What I try here is to bring some of those together in a balanced fashion that still achieves the developer’s goal of making the late game more challenging while keeping The Long Dark true to its roots and without alienating players. Please do feel free to add to, criticize and utterly demolish this if you can argue your point of view. Just please keep it civil, factual and respectful. You are entitled to your opinion, I am entitled to mine. The new Wolf AI In the current state wolves behave in a highly inconsistent manner. Some of this inconsistency may be due to lackluster implementation, but the bigger share of it is probably intentional. This makes predictions very hard and puts an over-emphasis on luck or better: the lack thereof. In a game that presents you obstacles there should be the appropriate counterplay available to overcome these obstacles. This allows for expression of skill and experience and gives the player the feeling that their actions do matter. Reducing mechanics to random chance removes the player from the equation, and degrades the question of success to a mere roll of the dice. This rewards players for refraining from taking action altogether and punishes those players that want to enjoy a more active playstyle, furthering - not disincentivizing - inactive late-games as we do experience now. Currently wolves do two new things that have been introduced recently: Wolves and fires The first thing is that they do not flee from fires anymore, but rather wait a certain amount of time (10 ingame minutes?) before charging the player. This renders fires as defensive positions rather ineffective since this does no longer allow to perform time lapsed actions. Pointing a weapon at wolves - any weapon, including stones and guns without ammunition - causes them to flee. The interesting thing here is that there are apparently three random checks for a wolf to flee: when it becomes aware of the player (this has been in the game forever and it's fine), when it becomes aware of the fire, and when if decides to charge the player. This makes wolves highly unpredictable and invites the notion that it is best to avoid them altogether, basically removing wolves from the game and reducing them to a sudden (and rather random) death. That wolves do no longer flee from fires that are being in the process of creation is a welcome change that removes the possibility of just being able to mindlessly wander about and “drop” a fire to remove any wolves in pursuit. That wolves however do no longer respect established fires as protective zones is something I can't agree with. Since the inception of The Long Dark fires were safe zones that protected from wolves. That bears do not adhere to this logic is a controversial topic, but has been long accepted since. What I propose is to keep the “hold ground” mechanic when approaching the player holding a torch or a flare, or a player in the process of being creating a fire while holding a torch or flare, but revert to wolves consistently fleeing from already established fires. Players that try to create a fire without having a burning torch or flare equipped are fair game and a wolf should charge them in any case. Also players that aim weapons at wolves while at a fire should be subject to retaliation rather than the wolf fleeing. (While we’re at it: the same should be true for both bears and moose, meaning they should respect established fires unless they are defending themselves.) So in short: flares and torches buy you a bit of time, established fires are safe zones as long as you don’t take aggressive actions. This emphasizes the importance of carrying a torch over how the game used to work - which meant that just having a single match was enough defence - but also retains the players ability to create a safe zone to sleep, craft, harvest and cook outdoors if the player manages to build a fire protected from the wind and provide enough fuel to it. Wolves and decoys The second change concerns wolves and their behaviour with decoys, also known as bait. Wolves do no longer pick up decoys unless the player is excessively far away, and also picking up decoys at all is highly inconsistent, but I don’t think that’s intentional - and indicative of a bug. What should happen is that once a player drops a decoy the wolf tries to acquire it as fast as possible, e.g. sprinting. If successful the wolf should escape as fast as possible, possibly while engaging in “evasive maneuvers” to throw off the players aim. If the player actually aims a weapon at any time in the process the wolf should indeed charge the player if still within reasonable range. This would achieve a multitude of things: decoys would again reliably serve their intended purpose of dropping the aggro from a pursuing predator. But it would also make it very hard for players to “exploit” decoys as bait as was stated by the developer's multiple times. If a player still manages to successfully hit the wolf that is the appropriate reward for them risking a struggle if they don’t. Both solutions aim to retain the player’s ability to reduce the threat from predators reasonably, while removing the ability to exploit either fires or decoys to hunt wolves (or big game) without the possibility of retaliation. General balancing changes to make late-game more challenging Since it is the apparent wish of the developers to make long term survival in The Long Dark more challenging I want to propose a few “knobs to turn” to achieve this with without frustrating the actual setting and feel of the game, but still achieve the desired uplift in late-game difficulty. Also a few points serve to mitigate some of the hardship put onto players by other points. Combat starvation more effectively While the non-punitive approach to combating starvation - the introduction of the Well Fed Buff - received a lot of praise from the community, I feel like Well Fed isn’t doing its job properly. If starvation is intended to remain an option to bridge periods of low access to calories then at least it should not be possible to maintain this state indefinitely. There are several ways to tackle this. One would be to simply raise the damage from starvation. But it has been pointed out several times that surviving without food is possible for weeks, which is at least technically correct. What however is not possible is to remain highly active while being starved of calorie intake and maintain this indefinitely. What I propose is to introduce a debuff that triggers once a player is actually starving, e.g. has run out of calories. This debuff would be called something like “Starvation Risk” and wouldn’t do anything on its own for the time being, but would stack up to “Starvation” over the course of 48 hours (2% per hour). Removing “Starvation Risk” is done gradually as well, with 2% for every hour of being fed. Once reaching 100% the player contracts the “Starvation” debuff, which comes with a heavy fatigue penalty akin to suffering from hypothermia, and also prevents all condition recovery. Curing “Starvation” would require to remain fed for at least a full day, with the timer again gaining if starvation occurs again. So for example being fed for 12 hours, starving for 4 and then again being fed for 16 hours would still cure “Starvation”. Being fed for 12, starving for 4, and then again being fed for 12... would not, but still require 4 more hours. To balance this after losing Well Fed (and right after starting the game) a player would have a 3 days grace period before starving would trigger “Starvation Risk” again, adding up to a total grace period of 5 days before having to face “Starvation”. That means a player that’s generally aiming to meet their calorie requirements isn’t punished immediately for failing to do so for a short time. Players generally successful in fact are probably never faced with it. The concept behind this is to prevent long-term starvation as a viable strategy without punishing players for intermittent drought periods too harshly, and to incentivise an active playstyle that revolves around acquiring resources such as food and firewood and as such is more susceptible to predators over a passive playstyle that mostly revolves around passing time, sleeping as much as possible and evading actually playing the game. Remove Cabin Fever With having to procure food to stay alive there is more than enough incentive to go outside and no further need to punish players that prefer to stay in man-made shelters most of the time. Aside from that Cabin Fever is easily worked around and mostly a relic of the "Leaderboard" days. 0% food should not be edible Once food reaches 0% it’s gone. Maybe allow harvesting the empty can from expired canned food, but that’s it. This applies to old-world food as well as to harvested meat. In canon with that…. 0% meat should not be useable Once meat reaches 0% it’s gone, too. The player cannot cook it any longer, and hence no longer apply 50% condition to a piece of bear meat that has been lying around for 1000 days. This prevents infinite stockpiling and incentivises a playstyle that is more rooted in the now rather than the then. Add salt and self-made jerky (dried meat) To balance meat going bad eventually salt is added to the game, which can be found in rather large quantities in kitchens. Meat can than be cured over the course of 5 days indoors. Cured meat makes thirsty akin to beef jerky, loses 25% of its calories, and does not receive a 50% condition bump as cooked meat gets, but loses only a fourth of its condition if stored indoors compared to cooked meat. Also it is not smelly. The concept behind this is to allow players to prepare food for travels to counteract the much more dangerous wolves (compared to pre-Errant Pilgrim) and also to store some of their hunting surplus for later at the cost of time, while not invalidating cooking as the preferred method of preparing meat if immediate consumption is intended. Blizzards should apply their temperature malus faster While it is fine (and probably preferable) that blizzards don’t apply their temperature malus while a player sleeps, it should not take several seconds for the temperature to drop and hence allow the player to “dodge” a blizzard from clicking Sleep fast enough. This would make stocking firewood more important if wanting to indulge life in a cave. Currently a player living in a cave can dodge a blizzard by just sleeping it away without ever having to light a fire, while still enjoying the fire duration bonus you do not get from indoor fires. Living in a designated safe house should not be disincentivised. Fix traversing very steep terrain downwards Currently it is possible to traverse almost perpendicular terrain downwards without more of the occasional sprain risk. This opens up very powerful shortcuts. It is, for example, possible to slide down from the Timberwolf Mountain crash site all the way to the open air Cave (the one with the abandoned campfire) without more than a few sprained limbs. Many more of these shortcuts exist in the game, most of which were certainly not originally intended by the developers. I’m not sure where the threshold should be, maybe at 70° (90° being straight down), but removing this from the game and letting the player fall very steep descents would make a lot of maps as challenging as they were intended to be as the risk of falling would be much higher. While this might cause some backlash from the “goating” community, I think most can agree that this being currently possible removes a lot of intended challenge from the game once you figure it out. Closing words I again want to emphasize that these are ideas and opinions, and that they certainly are no blueprint to be implemented verbatim. But I strongly believe that these changes would help the game to be more challenging and even generally better, while helping players wanting to be more active and reward them for it - all of it while keeping core game concepts intact. Thank you for reading.

Currently when food reaches ruined condition inside a container it disappears per the ruined item in a container rule. The exceptions would be items that have salvage value, like burned out torches can be harvested for a stick and ruined clothing for cloth or cured leather. Obviously, the game recognizes that those items have a residual value. Ruined sewing kits and whet stones don't. The effect as regards ruined food means that there is no way to really store food, be it meat, fish, or canned goods in lockers, containers, cabinets or drawers. In addition, with Lost and Found, when run, sweeping up whatever (generally) that is not in a container into the Lost and Found box which is a container, a lot of 'usable' ruined food get destroyed by Lost and Found. In the game, as currently configured, that ruined food still has value [to the player]. Therefore the rule about ruined items in containers should be modified to apply to ruined items that the player deliberately put into a container, showing that the player intended to dispose of the item, and not to apply that rule to items that get swept into a container such as the lost and found boxes or that reached ruined condition while in a container.

Do you think, if you planned your journey properly, that you could survive Entirely without a bedroll?