Extended Storms and preparations to endure them. [poll]

[SteveP]

What do you think about the idea of having storms so bad that they last for a week or more and going outside is nearly impossible so foraging is impossible. If you didn't prepare, you are pooched buddy!! Also in winter, there are times when there simply are no animals and fishing is nigh impossible. This may be a bit too much reality but it kinda makes sense in the Interloper mode of play. If you didn't gather like a grass hopper in times of plenty, you will die in winter. This would help justify the need for food preservation, sleds, stock piles of wood, stock piles of food and water, and of course, long term planning!

[AZHockeyNut]

I like it but the stuff should be scaled by level of difficulty. Meaning in Interloper it is weeks long. A week in stalker, then down the line for the easier levels. Food shortages too of course. As well as severity of the storms all based on difficulty level.

wood shortages would be interesting too.

how would you propose cabin fever be adjusted though?

[Wormer]

Yeah I support the idea overall, I would love there were longer periods of good weather and then longer periods of bad weather. On the long goal I thought it was a great thing when they add seasons: you need to prepare for the winter during the summertime when there are lots of plants growing and wildlife is abundant and weather is not so cold.

[cekivi]

This is already supposed to be implemented in Interloper with reduced animal spawns if you over fish/hunt. However, not many people have reported noticing changes yet.

Although interesting, the main problem with week long storms is how do you fix the cabin fever problem?

[ArcherAC3]

1 hour ago, cekivi said:

This is already supposed to be implemented in Interloper with reduced animal spawns if you over fish/hunt.

But it's not seasonal, is it? I believe they will always get more and more scarse until you can't find such resources and perish, am I'm wrong? Haven't survive enough on interloper to notice it very well though xD

[mystifeid]

2 hours ago, ArcherAC3 said:

I believe they will always get more and more scarse until you can't find such resources and perish

Spawn times are longer in Interloper eg bear is (from my bad memory) around 7 days in Stalker and around 50 days in Interloper. Increase in spawn time for deer is not so great but in some places - eg Desolation Point - they do seem to become scarcer. (Bears appear not to become scarcer).

At the moment, increased scarcity only affects those who wish to stay in one place. Anyone willing to travel in Interloper can find a continuing overabundance of game and once you have level 5 cooking skill and can eat wolves/bear this becomes true for staying in the one place as well. As others have said, for Interloper it would be better if there were also not so many in the first place and that finding a deer for example should involve much more travel/work.

[cekivi]

3 hours ago, ArcherAC3 said:

But it's not seasonal, is it?

At the moment there are no seasons so no

[Wastelander]

11 hours ago, cekivi said:

Although interesting, the main problem with week long storms is how do you fix the cabin fever problem?

Well I did advocate for finding a bottle o' Jack a while ago and I still do

Great topic by the way, medium-term blizzards and stuff are things I really miss in the game. Make them less frequent but longer than current blizzards. Forces us to plan ahead WAY more and be adaptable.

[SteveP]

Well if you get trapped by a storm, cabin fever is a significant concern. This is where more crafting could come in handy. If you were trapped in real life, your positive attitude would make a huge difference. If you just sat around and moped, depression would get you. On the other hand, if  you had some porcupine quills to make beads out of, then you could decorate your hide coat with patterns, which in itself would present a mini-game and a creative outlet for players.

I don't really  understand the rules and mechanics of cabin fever. If you go outside for a few minutes each day for fresh air, doesn't that just reset the cabin fever? What if you had to have a snow shelter outside to be safe from the horrible elements? An interesting concept; more trade offs.

[Ohbal]

There have been a ton of conversation around the cabin fever lately, and I agree is a mechanic that could use a review. The cabin fever should be a blocker to recovery, not to the sleep itself. You get cabin fever, you don't heal in-doors. Maybe introducing a slow health-penalty, so your condition drops 5-10% per day to make you feel the weight of your depression. I like the idea of a bottle of booze as well... cigarretes could also be a thing. 

Good topic by the way, great to see you around again @SteveP

[SteveP]

Thank you sir.

Cabin fever could be like an impairment; somewhat like how the room reels and spins when  you are at 10% condition? Or maybe you pass out and find yourself somewhere else and no memory of in between? I think it's worth thinking outside the box here. What if everything went blue and fuzzy? you had momentary black outs? Shakes, rambling, muttering, uncoordinated actions, poor judgement (how to simulate that?), throwing things around, loosing things, rage, depression, sadness... Your player bangs his head on the wall and gets a wound from it. Passes out occasionally. Wakes up nearly naked and your food and water and possessions are scattered about randomly. The mouse starts to work backwards up for down, left for right. Just really play with your head until you go outside and clear your head for a while. Coldness should snap you out of it or any dangerous situation perhaps. Maybe there is some specific action you must perform to snap out of it. Let's get crazy here! Ideas? What if there were some sort of tonic that could help you snap out of it? Or some task you have to do as a compulsion. Such as riding the toboggan downhill!! Or some other crazy dangerous stunt!

[Ohbal]

While I can see the romanticism behind your ideas, there are not many things as dangerous to gameplay perception than taking away player control... and make things happen to our characters in game. Nope, I think the solution needs to be more in line with the rest of the afflictions: condition loss.

I wouldn't mind the house spinning like when the character is close to death though  

[exeexe]

6 hours ago, Ohbal said:

While I can see the romanticism behind your ideas, there are not many things as dangerous to gameplay perception than taking away player control... and make things happen to our characters in game. Nope, I think the solution needs to be more in line with the rest of the afflictions: condition loss.

I wouldn't mind the house spinning like when the character is close to death though  

You dont lose condition from cabin fever. Its not actually a fever its in the brain. When something is in the brain u lose control

[Ape88]

Long Term Preservation of food would become a necessity. At the moment meat degrades rather rapidly. I'm sure there are better ways of making it last longer.

[Dirmagnos]

Id like to see serious hazards, occurring with some degree of randomness. But.

I dont want week(s) long blizzards. At this moment cabin fever would be an issue, im sure it will be reworked or sacked in the future, but may be a problem as of now.

But most importantly, wth am i supposed to do during that week-long storm ? If im couple of months in, then i have if not all, but most important stuff crafted and polishing my gun for a week will result in some serious cramping. 8) 3-4 days seem to be a lot more reasonable.

Animal migration has also been proposed be4 and it would make sense, as no animal sticks to the same area for long. They move around, looking for food, avoiding predators(or looking for prey) or escaping unfavorable weather conditions. Occasional animal/fish exodus, either all or some(if deer moves away then wolves will follow), for a few weeks would make game more dynamic, forcing player to move as well, instead of just camping in the same area week after week, month after month.

[ArcherAC3]

On 05/11/2016 at 0:09 AM, cekivi said:

At the moment there are no seasons so no

Sorry, I meant like "happening and reseting with a determinated time", e.g animals take 50 days to respawn or plants take X time to respawn. Is this mechanic in Interloper? Or are the plants and animals just gone for good after we harvest/kill all of them?

[mystifeid]

In my last Interloper game, I didn't have a coat until I crafted the wolfskin one.

I got to the PV barn on day 40 and was hammered by six straight days of 10+ hour blizzards in daylight hours. This basically had the effect of an extended storm and I nearly ran out of food. It is hard to hunt deer at night especially in PV with 11C clothing bonus.

It got very boring and dull and seriously detracted from the game.

Personally I would rather see 3-5 hour blizzards with increased frequency instead of daily 10 hour blizzards. Or at the least, blizzards with a more random duration.

[cekivi]

3 hours ago, ArcherAC3 said:

Sorry, I meant like "happening and reseting with a determinated time", e.g animals take 50 days to respawn or plants take X time to respawn. Is this mechanic in Interloper? Or are the plants and animals just gone for good after we harvest/kill all of them?

Plants are gone for good but animals will respawn.

[tha_vampyr]

i think scarcity of meat sources if a good idea  > IF < you can eventually preserve food for long(er) times?

[mystifeid]

Eventually you get level 5 cooking skill and can't get food poisoning from meat you cook. I've had nearly 100kg of cooked meat lined up outside PV farmstead. Some was 25 days old but still tasted great.

[Ohbal]

18 hours ago, exeexe said:

You dont lose condition from cabin fever. Its not actually a fever its in the brain. When something is in the brain u lose control

But that is a complicated mechanic to implement in a videogame. You are not going to lose your head at home, but you will lose control of your character. 

Would you like to lose control over your character for long periods of time? Would you like to see your 100+ days game lost because of something like this? Just asking  

[exeexe]

1 hour ago, Ohbal said:

But that is a complicated mechanic to implement in a videogame. You are not going to lose your head at home, but you will lose control of your character. 

Would you like to lose control over your character for long periods of time? Would you like to see your 100+ days game lost because of something like this? Just asking  

Yes ofcourse. It can be done in many ways. Here is just one example: You wont be able to spot wolves and hear them, only when they come within 10 meters of you will you be able to see and hear them. And you see and hear 2 or 3 bears everywhere you go. So when you meet a real bear you wont know that its real. And there is a 50% chance that you will drop to the floor for 10 minutes which is bad if you are trying to start a fire or mending.

[Ohbal]

I like the hallucination approach, that would be a cool way to play tricks on the player's mind. It doesn't take away control from you. 

Dropping on the floor for 10 minutes though, not so sure about it. That shoud be a consecuence of over-fatigue imo

[Dirmagnos]

Not sure what exactly is supposed to happen for a character to go completely mental to have hallucinations or catatonic state. Most definitely not just sitting at home, warm and well fed.

[SteveP]

On 11/7/2016 at 2:46 AM, Ohbal said:

But that is a complicated mechanic to implement in a videogame. You are not going to lose your head at home, but you will lose control of your character. 

Would you like to lose control over your character for long periods of time? Would you like to see your 100+ days game lost because of something like this? Just asking  

Well the mechanic is partly already there since its what happens when you almost die and you are drunkenly reeling and the controls become mushy and unresponsible. It would be frustrating for sure but it would not prevent you from getting outside, with effort! At that point, the fresh air should restore sanity. For sure Cabin Fever would need some form of adjustment and yes, you would need to be able to do stuff indoors. The point is, if you weren't prepared to last out a long storm, let's say 3-7 days by planning ahead and having say crafting materials on hand such as cattail leaves, you would go stir crazy. Of course, with a crafting activity, I don't think you SHOULD get cabin fever. You are keeping busy. Cabin fever is the sort of thing you get if you have nothing to occupy your time at all. Currently, you get cabin fever if you spend too long crafting and forging stuff. That don't seem right!

I wonder if you could have a variety of different effects; some days, everything would be mirror image; try to go left and you go right! There could be waves where everything seems to shimmer like the old TV Visual effects. There is simply a ton of things that can be done with a few simple graphics transformations and it would be fun. No need for the effect to be constant. Maybe it fades in and out; maybe it changes to a different effect. The point is, you are going crazy!

Let's suppose you tried to do reverse wrap cordage for several days; that could drive you stir crazy couldn't it? Give you blisters too!

Here is an article on cabin fever symptoms:

Quote

The American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association characterize the symptoms of cabin fever as:

• A lack of patience
• Always feeling tired
• Feeling unproductive and unmotivated
• Feeling sad or depressed
• Lethargy
• Difficulty concentrating
• Craving carbohydrates or sugar
• Difficulty waking in the morning
• Sleep disturbance
• Social withdrawal
• Irritability

Other symptoms of cabin fever are hopelessness, losing interest in the activities one used to enjoy earlier, weight gain/weight loss, difficulty concentrating and/or processing information and change in the sex drive.

If you are feeling all cooped up, experts recommend diet, exercise, and a regimen of regular goal-oriented activities to survive the winter blahs.

See http://www.empowher.com/emotional-health/content/cabin-fever-symptoms-solutions