[Updated] CLARIFICATION: How Intestinal Parasites (Trichinosis) Works (as of v.326+)


Patrick Carlson

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40 minutes ago, Dinhammer said:

It does seem mighty convenient that all rummaged - up antibiotics are the proper type, doesn't it?  I am totally with you on the birch bark tea, especially since the devs won't have to create a new resource chain to implement it.

Yeah exactly.  They already have all the necessary components! :D 

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Oh, metronidazole isn't all that uncommon, especially if you have pets or farm animals. 

It is one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the vet's pharmacy. I think I prescribed almost as much metronidazole as I did Clavamox (amoxicillin augmented with clavulanic acid). It works great for diarrhea due to bacterial imbalance or due to protozoan parasites. Which makes it totally appropriate in the case of food poisoning . . .

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7 hours ago, hauteecolerider said:

Oh, metronidazole isn't all that uncommon, especially if you have pets or farm animals. 

It is one of the most commonly prescribed drugs in the vet's pharmacy. I think I prescribed almost as much metronidazole as I did Clavamox (amoxicillin augmented with clavulanic acid). It works great for diarrhea due to bacterial imbalance or due to protozoan parasites. Which makes it totally appropriate in the case of food poisoning . . .

I stand corrected. :) Treatment of farm animals is something I know nothing about!

My cat has been prescribed Clavamox, but never metronidazole.  But she is a fat, lazy house cat that doesn't go outdoors, so parasitic infection risk is nonexistent, so maybe that's why I've never seen/heard of it.

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Metronidazole is used for Giardia and Coccidia. 

A couple of zoonotic diseases. Transmissible from pet to human and vice versa (I usually see the vice versa - ugh). 

You've been fortunate.

I know of some vets who prescribe metronidazole as a prophylactic around dental cleanings, especially in older animals with potty mouths. 

It is also helpful in cats with inflammatory bowel syndrome (IBS).

Edited by hauteecolerider
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It does work great for giardiasis.  I actually carry about 24 tabs in my emergency kit when long-distance backpacking as insurance against precisely the kind of giardia-induced dysentery you might get in-game from "unsafe" water.  Getting it from snow-melt would be rare; more common cause is accidentally drawing water downstream from animal scat.  (Yes, eww.)  It happens. 

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You know, I really don't have a problem with this. The %chance is on a really slow build up, so as long as you have a couple of diverse sources of food, your risk of getting infected should never run too high.  It's not a restrictive risk, just one that makes you have to strategize your diet.

I'm good on this one.

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So having gotten this mechanic and now being in my 9th day of treatment. I don't think this mechanic is working in a well balanced manner. First of all. I love getting parasites. But I shouldn't let me tell you why. I'm a runner in this game. I love to run from one place to another. Parasites allow me because of the way the infection mechanic works to never run out of energy. I never get fatigued to the point I cant run. I'm not sure if this is a bug but I first started noticing this on like day 4 or day 5 where the stamina bar never quite empties. This is by design I believe so you don't get a full 8 hours of sleep right? But fact is if outfitted with warm clothes and I'm on day 16 so still all uncrafted clothes, I'm prancing around picking up sticks by the barrell frolicking from branch to branch to pass 10 min get 3 stick pass another 10 min maybe some wind too and get 3 sticks and now I've got a full run bar again. Yeah I think this part of the condition needs to be re-done. 

The other part of this is I have exhausted all of the shrooms in ML, and the shrooms in the ravine. So if I get a parasitic infection again it means I have to go to another map for the mushrooms. In my view this is too costly a condition. But combine this with the exploit of never running out of energy which clearly breaks the game and never getting parasites again no matter how much cooked predator meat you eat means it also is sort of a bogus implement. 

Here is what I think we should do. I think Mushrooms should continue to be for food poisoning only. I like the idea of using the birch bark. Maybe add some processing at a crafting table or better yet some cooking in order to make an anti-parasite concoction, something that has to be consumed hot, take an hour to boil, etc. Should at least cut down the number of treatments from 10 to 5. Also the idea of a renewable remedy is preferable to mushrooms. Or just make mushrooms renewable after snowstorms. The odds of getting parasites are pretty low so this could be increased but still made to be manageable. A player is almost never in a position to contract this because if they consume 1 piece of predator meat per day the odds are one infection in 100 days at present. So that is pretty stable. I also think the negatives to getting parasites, should prevent you from being able to fully recharge, and tire fully. This would prevent the exploit where I simply frolick all around without being subject to stamina loss.

 

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The fix is much more balanced. Now it is not  definite you will get a parasitic infection where there is the reset after 24 hours.

I actually like the way it is now with antibiotics and mushrooms. These are a rare commodity in the game and will make one be cautious once you have had your first bout of parasites that you may not have the antibiotics to treat another infection. After treating that first parasitic infection, those cattails will start looking good.

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10 minutes ago, Greenglades said:

These are a rare commodity in the game and will make one be cautious once you have had your first bout of parasites that you may not have the antibiotics to treat another infection.

If you ever lack antibiotics, I can very much recommend TWM to get some. Found more than 40 antibiotic pills in the 3 medicine-containers and another ~130 reishi mushrooms there during my current game. 

That's enough to treat 8.5 parasite infections in Stalker or 17 infections in Voyageur with the antibiotics & mushrooms from TWM alone.^^

Edited by Scyzara
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12 minutes ago, Scyzara said:

If you ever lack antibiotics, I can very much recommend TWM to get some. Found more than 40 antibiotic pills in the 3 medicine-containers and another ~130 reishi mushrooms there during my current game. 

That's enough to treat 8.5 parasite infections in Stalker or 17 infections in Voyageur with the antibiotics & mushrooms from TWM alone.^^

Yeah, I always save TWM as the last resort, but if you are weakened on a search for antibiotics, the first wolf that catches may end up doing you in. I should have made my way there. Stalker Mode I was in Pleasant Valley (post signal hill and dam clearing)  I started stump collecting by the Three Farm area then went back to check the farmhouse (it was of course in a game saved and played before the patch where I wasn't concerned about antibiotics or wolves for that matter with a good stock of torches and flares, and I had about 15 lichen bandages. Oh the surprise when the wolf tore that flare out of my hand.....

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10 hours ago, KD7BCH said:

So having gotten this mechanic and now being in my 9th day of treatment. I don't think this mechanic is working in a well balanced manner. First of all. I love getting parasites. But I shouldn't let me tell you why. I'm a runner in this game. I love to run from one place to another. Parasites allow me because of the way the infection mechanic works to never run out of energy. I never get fatigued to the point I cant run. I'm not sure if this is a bug but I first started noticing this on like day 4 or day 5 where the stamina bar never quite empties. This is by design I believe so you don't get a full 8 hours of sleep right? But fact is if outfitted with warm clothes and I'm on day 16 so still all uncrafted clothes, I'm prancing around picking up sticks by the barrell frolicking from branch to branch to pass 10 min get 3 stick pass another 10 min maybe some wind too and get 3 sticks and now I've got a full run bar again. Yeah I think this part of the condition needs to be re-done. 

 

I've noticed this too. (logged a bug report already)

The way it was implemented doesn't seem to match Hinterland's description of the affliction ("it decreases your maximum fatigue"). It actually could be seen as an advantage for a couple of reasons:

  1. I had about 20 days with parasites (I'm on Xbox so had a longer wait until the Hotfix and the map ran out of mushrooms/medicine before I could heal). In those 20 days I was sprinting everywhere like a carefree little fairy. No risk of fatigue and no dramatically lowered carry weight as I grew tired.
  2. During those 20 days I killed a bear, and was gleefully eating 900 calorie chunks of bear meat until I was full for days on end with no risk of recontracting parasites.

I just hotfixed and finally cured my parasites yesterday. It was actually surprising how quickly I got exhausted. Bring back my parasites! ;)

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6 hours ago, Scyzara said:

If you ever lack antibiotics, I can very much recommend TWM to get some. Found more than 40 antibiotic pills in the 3 medicine-containers and another ~130 reishi mushrooms there during my current game. 

That's enough to treat 8.5 parasite infections in Stalker or 17 infections in Voyageur with the antibiotics & mushrooms from TWM alone.^^

Appreciate the heads up. Yeah only thing is I dread TWM lol :) I'm a camper on Mystery Lake mostly. I love the peace and serenity of knowing that I only have a mile or two to go before I sleep. On TWM I die substantially more. 

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3 hours ago, GorillaDust said:

I've noticed this too. (logged a bug report already)

The way it was implemented doesn't seem to match Hinterland's description of the affliction ("it decreases your maximum fatigue"). It actually could be seen as an advantage for a couple of reasons:

  1. I had about 20 days with parasites (I'm on Xbox so had a longer wait until the Hotfix and the map ran out of mushrooms/medicine before I could heal). In those 20 days I was sprinting everywhere like a carefree little fairy. No risk of fatigue and no dramatically lowered carry weight as I grew tired.
  2. During those 20 days I killed a bear, and was gleefully eating 900 calorie chunks of bear meat until I was full for days on end with no risk of recontracting parasites.

I just hotfixed and finally cured my parasites yesterday. It was actually surprising how quickly I got exhausted. Bring back my parasites! ;)

I agree, having parasites actually results in a net positive effect and it shouldn't but when they fix it it will result in a costly negative. I'm not wild about a 10 day infection or 10 days of treatment. That is all I'm saying about that one. The current game where you are subject to needing to sleep, and having parasites prevents you from needing to sleep means your character has unlimited energy while sacrificing only a few percentage points of condition in order to be like that and sacrificing the ability to recover the single percent per hour but idling if not sleepy. 

Which means you can harvest wood much longer, and you can craft indoors much longer as well and ice fish much longer etc. It needs to be re-balanced. 

Edited by KD7BCH
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Experience with parasites:
I contracted them from some leftover wolf meat I had from before the parasitic implementations.
As a Voyageur player the 24 hour reset seems reasonable. I'm no scientist but I believe they'd pass through my system after 24 hours.
The current 5 day antibiotic resolution seems appropriate.

Opinion:
I'm not in favor of a "renewable" resolution and I believe Hinterland isn't either: the reason they added parasites is to make wolves and bears a food choice with serious risks. What happens if you don't treat the parasite infection?  You die just like an untreated wolf bite infection, right?
It's clear that the entire purpose of introducing parasites is to deter players from treating wolves and bears as a food source and I agree with this.

Prior parasitic infection I viewed wolves as just another food source. Now I don't.
If I hadn't had any leftover meat in my locker I wouldn't have eaten it. Now if I kill a wolf, I'm much less likely to consider it food. I won't consider eating wolf at all now unless I'm completely out of other food: I'd rather use one dose of antibiotics to treat a wolf bite than use six to treat parasites plus the one used to treat the wolf bite in the first place. That's wasteful.

I may take down a wolf to get the deer it took down, but I'll leave that wolf to rot. All of it unless I need to waste time taking its hide.
Wolves and bears are predators to be avoided. i can live off of rabbit and fish supplemented by deer.

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I understand your argument (i.e. ensure the parasite detriment is meaningful) but I can give four good reasons for including birch bark tea as a treatment:

  1. Parasites should discourage eating wolf/bear - not prevent it if you're out of antibiotics or hunting them anyways for a coat/bedroll
  2. You will run out of antibiotics eventually. It'd be nice to have some alternative so that 2/5 the food options are still viable in the long game
  3. Getting enough birch bark for tea would be far more arduous than keeping a bottle of pills handy. That maintains the detriment of parasites.
  4. With a renewable treatment, parasite risk can be increased slightly without it feeling overly punishing to the players. Then you're more likely to experience this mechanic.
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Agreed, I still favor birch bark tea as a cure, too. Preferably in combination with a somehow cumulative infection risk (instead of the current rng system).

My main concerns about the current system are neither that I personally fear to ever run out of antibiotics nor that I feel the need to avoid predator meat completely (I constantly eat 2 pieces of bear meat a day and haven't contracted parasites in 50 days so far..), but it's the extreme degree of randomness connected to parasites which - in my opinion - causes a presumably unintended behavior in many fellow players.

I don't think it's good for the game if players believe it's necessary not to eat any wolf or bear meat at all any more and thus let the meat decay in the carcass. (The current mechanics certainly don't make that truely necessary in my opinion, but they seem to give a whole lot of people the impression it was so and that's the real issue here.)

Besides, extreme randomness connected to "serious" afflictions is always likely to cause complaints (or at least misjudgement) in the long run. For a considerable amount of people will probably get unlucky at some point (e.g. parasite infection despite just 1% risk) and afterwards change their whole playstyle for all future games based on this one unlucky (and nonrepresentative) experience. 

TL, DR:

As much as I personally love insecurity and randomness in TLD in general, I really believe parasite infections are not the right place for it.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/21/2016 at 9:11 PM, Patrick Carlson said:

* The risk of contracting Intestinal Parasites from eating cooked meat is low: 2% per instance. This 2% is per instance, and is cumulative. So, if you eat 10 Wolf steaks, you have a 20% chance of contracting the parasites.

That isn't true, is it? Or did I miss a further clarification?

From my experience it seems to be at least 4 or 5% per kilo of wolf - perhaps less for smaller pieces, I dunno. I've never eaten more than 3 or 4 pieces of wolf in a day, and my % chance went up to 19%.

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2 hours ago, Pillock said:

That isn't true, is it? Or did I miss a further clarification?

From my experience it seems to be at least 4 or 5% per kilo of wolf - perhaps less for smaller pieces, I dunno. I've never eaten more than 3 or 4 pieces of wolf in a day, and my % chance went up to 19%.

They updated a the mechanic a bit with v. 326. That was how it worked when the mechanic was introduced. At that point they didn't reset the chance daily, it just kept building indefinitely. I believe it is 1% for the first time you consume wolf or bear meat, 2 puts you to 4% and it just keeps ramping up with each piece. I personally don't think I ever let it shoot past 19%.

 

Edited by lupineways
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So here is my experience and maybe I'm not very lucky. So I'm a long haul player and am on about day 341 last I played and for a while I was getting parasites all the time so a majority of my antibiotics have depleted. I've scavenged a majority of the maps and feel that eventually I will have to resort to eating bear and wolf meat as sometimes it takes awhile for snares to get a rabbit as well as fishing isn't always guaranteed. With the activities I usually perform I need a high source of calorie intake and regular food is starting to dwindle. Even now I catch parasites often and I cant seem to find mushrooms often enough as an alternative to antibiotics. The struggle with parasites is very much real for me. Sometimes I will eat only two or three slabs of wolf meat and randomly contract parasites. I personally am a hunter and avid woodsman and growing up living on a farm we all lived off the land. We planted our Fruits and vegetables picking them and hunted for our meat. Not many times at all have I ever had issues with parasites or getting sick. 

I think condition of the meat should play a larger role in contracting parasites or becoming ill more so than just eating the meat. I'm sure our character is smart enough to cook the meats thoroughly before eating. I've personally had more issues with salmonella in fish than any other meat I've consumed in experience. For long haul players these issues are becoming quite a struggle.

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That's why I almost completely stopped eating wolf and bear but it hurts me everytime to let 30kg of perfect bear meat (I know how to cook :D)) lying on the ground, I hope that the devs will find us some other use for the meat mountains we leave behind.

My main diet therefor consists of deer venison and fish, both are plenty enough available and do respawn, you shouldn't run out of them. But it takes more of an effort than it used to be to hunt down a deer because in many places they stand alone without any wolf nearby to chase them into. On the plus side though I got quite good at long distance shooting :D

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I guess pine nuts is an option right? Lol yeah I've almost entirely quit eating bear and wolf meat as well. I could understand if it was at a low condition as it would be closer to being spoilt but this? Cant get into it anymore really. 

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  • 1 month later...

I like the worms mechanic in all aspects except one, i'm pretty sure you don't treat worms with antibiotics.  There should be a separate anti parasite medication, and possibly herbal treatment.

Edited by continuity
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