S.T.O.P. Survival acronym; rewarding planning and signalling [POLL]


SteveP

STOP achievements, calmness, rewards, signaling   

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In real survival, proper mental attitude & planning is vital so thoughtful deliberation is important and should be rewarded in the game. Always remember the survival mantra STOP:

S is for Stop; sit down, calm down, assess the situation. Take slow deep breaths until you feel calm. Panic is the enemy.
T is for Think; take inventory; review how you got there, your situation, inventory and what you need to achieve next and what are your options. Repeat your mantra in threes: I will survive (x3), I am a survivor (x3), I will not fear (x3)
O is for Observe; what is your location, can you see where you need to go, what is the current weather and what is the weather going to do? What time of day is it and how much daylight is left? Are there visible threats and opportunities (wolves, deer, rabbits, crows)? Also take inventory of what you  have and what you might need to take or leave behind.
P is for Plan & Act; only after calming down, assessing the situation, are you able to make a truly informed plan.
If you work this theme into your game, it will help others in their game play OR help reinforce this important mantra for real survival. Many times, the best option is to sit tight, if the situation is stable and set up a signal for help. I know in the game, there is no option for help however it would not hurt to go through the motions of creating three signal fires or setting up mirrors or flags or other tactics for getting attention!! Doing nothing is not really an option but moving without a plan can be a disaster. Often you may need to survive in place (if the resources are adequate)

I'd like to suggest adding a calmness factor or skill bonus; this could be directly related to cabin fever, sanity and other mental and inspiration factors already present or anticipated for the game. For example, you would score points or rewards by doing the steps outlined in the STOP survival acronym. One of the most important steps is to create a signal. This can be done by building three fires, by setting up visible markers that can be easily seen from the air such as by stomping out a trail in the snow and filling it with high contrast materials such as grass or sticks, by erecting three flags and so forth. Creating a dense black smokey fire would be another excellent plan. Perhaps one could score achievements by doing this, or better yet, gain reward points for going through the steps of STOP. When the player first starts the game, they are in panic mode so as soon as possible, when it is safe to do so, the player should stop, take inventory and make a plan.

The player's game dialogue could suggest these things such as until he stops to rest and eat, he keeps mumbling and panicking. Once he stops, he can review the survival mantra such as giving clues to observe the situation, the time of day, the important priorities, and the options. What are things that you might say to yourself if you were lost in real life?

Other options might include eating now, drinking water, saving food for later cooking to improve the calories you get from it, remembering to take useful items the first time the opportunity presents itself. I am hoping that others can suggest other ways that the game can reward careful planning, signalling and other important features of survival IN GAME. I know there are many survival experts who participate on the forums. Please suggest other ideas!!

Here are some links to various online guides:

http://thesurvivalmom.com/find-lost-s-t-o-p/

http://www.befoundalive.com/articles/article/8430068/163312.htm

http://survivalcommonsense.com/stop/

Remember the rule of threes: three minutes without air; three hours without warmth; three days without water; three weeks without food.

http://www.backcountrychronicles.com/wilderness-survival-rules-of-3/

Wilderness Survival Rules of 3 – Air, Shelter, Water and Food

 

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Another good survival tip is the rule of 5s. Here is a reference and an overview:

http://beforeitsnews.com/survival/2013/01/prepping-with-the-rule-of-5s-2457216.html

We could have an achievement for collecting 5 or 15 or 25 of various items:

-15 candles

-5 boxes of matches

-5 lighters

-5 flashlights

-5 radios- AM-FM, weather, CB, shortwave (battery, hand crank, solar)

-25 batteries (sizes that you will use)

-5 lanterns or hurricane lamps (battery, hand crank, solar, kerosene)

-5 gallons of kerosene

-15 days of firewood

-25 gallons of drinking water

-15 gallons of non-drinking water

-55 lbs of food

-5 bottles or types of medications (aspirin, Ibuprofen, Imodium, Tylenol, decongestant)

-15 rolls of toilet paper

-5 emergency tarps

-5 rolls of duct tape

-5 bottles of hand sanitizer

-25 band-aids

-5 blankets

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Your rule of fives is actually fairly well covered in the Whiteout challenge. As for STOP... that really depends on the players individual actions more than anything else. The game already rewards planning and punishes panic by making survival easier or harder respectively.

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1 hour ago, cekivi said:

Your rule of fives is actually fairly well covered in the Whiteout challenge. As for STOP... that really depends on the players individual actions more than anything else. The game already rewards planning and punishes panic by making survival easier or harder respectively.

There are no obvious penalties for panicking such as adrenaline causing shaking. The benefits of observation are not very obvious so I was thinking that this can be enhanced. Also, the player should give verbal clues to his/her state of mind. Perhaps this will come along with the sanity system.

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Well, although the STOP method seems interesting, I'm not sure I'd like random values to be implemented in the game for when the game itself believes the character is in panic or calm.

My idea would approach more to a scenario where the game would punish the player because of his own behaviour, ans not because of what the game thinks the character is feeling.

We can take a game called DayZ as an example to explain this better (the most intense game I've ever played, giving me some serious adrenaline rushes). The first time I've found a gun on that game I was panicking so much trying not to get killed and losing it that I simply couldn't think of what to do next, I just waited for so much time close to a building afraid of going out. Then when I spotted a player with a handgun and we engaged each other in a shootout my hands were shaking so much that it was pretty hard for me to hit him. After the combat it took me about 10 minutes to calm down and stop shaking, I had never felt something like that in a videogame before (sadly you get used to it after playing the game more and it loses this intensity). Now, the point I was trying to get here is that I wished The Long Dark provided more of this feeling without having to add values to the gameplay mechanic trying to simulate this feeling on the character when the player is not really panicking that much.

The problem is that I have no idea on how to implement it, maybe a whole game overhaul would be needed, which would be unrealistic to ask for, but there simply should be a way to more noticeably benefit players that use technics like STOP, and punish more hardly players that just act without thinking. Maybe if we had larger maps and longer travel times with longer day/night periods it could add to harder decisions, where choosing between staying or crossing a field really mattered about everytime instead of only Interloper mode which happens sometimes when I'm playing.

Also, what I believe that made DayZ an intense game was knowing that if you die you'd lose all that long time you wasted to get where you were, specially if you were up north, away from the coast (spawn points). This was more noticeable in TLD when the starting region was locked to Mystery Lake I think, making players who got to far away regions really scared of dying and even risking exploring them xompletely, fearing for losing all that progress they made to get that far. Now, I don't think that region locking would be a solution, but maybe adding more and larger regions with spawn points only really far away from some specific areas (I mean Seriously far, forcing players to waste some real time to get there) would be a nice thing to add, although it wouldn't fix this completely.

Anyway, it's 0200 here, I should be sleeping already, so I'm sorry if I just said stupid things on this long text. Just trying to share my ideas and getting things a bit clearer.

 

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Oh, for things like shaking due to adrenaline, since this isn't an FPS like DayZ which I used as an example, what about having some kind of mini games for doing certain tasks? Or more complex fixing/crafting/harvesting, making the player having to focus and be patient to complete some tasks while he might be panicking? The safe unlocking system is a perfect example, once I took just too damn long on Interloper to unlock it since I was freezing to death because I tried to do it faster but end up making too many mistakes. If I was playing even stalker, I wouldn't have cared about being careful and slow and would have unlocked it much faster I believe.

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  • 1 month later...
On 12/6/2016 at 8:05 PM, ArcherAC3 said:

The problem is that I have no idea on how to implement it, maybe a whole game overhaul would be needed, which would be unrealistic to ask for, but there simply should be a way to more noticeably benefit players that use technics like STOP, and punish more hardly players that just act without thinking. Maybe if we had larger maps and longer travel times with longer day/night periods it could add to harder decisions, where choosing between staying or crossing a field really mattered about everytime instead of only Interloper mode which happens sometimes when I'm playing.

If you take a look at the very best players doing videos on Youtube and using the Interloper mode, you will find that they do use the key elements of STOP in their operational planning. I would refer you to @Grax (is that your login here?) or Graxster on Youtube. I tend to agree that Interloper requires planning and careful consideration of what to bring, when to eat, prioritization of objectives and the importance of moving from point to point as resources become exhausted.

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I like the sound of the additional realism of how the body reacts to situations - fear and trembling, shaking, heart beat and breathing changes, etc. It all helps with immersion into the game - and the game is already really immersive, which is a great start!

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  • 3 months later...

Sounds like adrenaline side effects is something folks would like.

I've seen some videos where people have made big signals out on the lake snow using firewood such as HELP! Looks cool! There should be a challenge for that like setting up three signal fires...

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