Latest Update needs tuning


Smeden

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So we have some new mechanics in the game and a new zone. This is great, it shows progress and activity on the part of the developers.

But now that we've all had a few days to play under the new conditions, let's look at how things are working.

Outfitter...looks nice, the new graphics, inner and outer layers, things getting more "realistic".  Now I put that in quotations for a reason.  Hinterland is very clear on their opening splash screens they aren't looking for realism in their animal personalities.  My experience so far with the Outfitter update is that it took way too much away and added entirely too much weight.  I can understand mobility being an issue, but there is entirely too much weight involved in this new clothing system(e.g. I have several good pairs of heavy wool socks, a pair weighs between 90-100g.....well below half the weight the game has them listed as).  I tallied up my characters clothes yesterday and he's wearing 12.75kg...that's 28 pounds of clothing AND his warmth and windchill bonuses are not what they were before when he was wearing less.  I should also add I have a couple of slots that aren't filled yet, neither accessory and the outer of the underwear slot are empty.  Quite literally being in full furs and heavy wool undergarments at the start of the new update was almost like the clothing at the beginning of a new game before the update.  Prior to this update my character had a +24 warmth and +17 Windchill bonus for clothing.  His bonuses now, double layered almost completely as listed above are only +20 Warmth and +6 Windchill and he's carrying about 30% more weight in clothing than he used too.  Oh, and he's at a 35% penalty for sprinting.  It's literally gotten to the point with the weight system in place that to be properly clothed and equipped for a simply walk outside you're already well over 30kg.

 

My pack for general exploration is as follows(General Exploration may or may not mean zone crossing as the expedition goes):

Fire:

Couple of accelerant, magnifying glass, couple of boxes of matches, 3 tinder

Medical:

Regular Bandage(1), Beard Bandage(2), Stim(1), Antibiotics(10=5 doses just in case), Painkillers(20=10 doses because for some reason if I sprain both a wrist and an ankle I have to take double the amount even though I wouldn't in real life)

Food:

Cat-Tail Stalks(10), Water 1-2L depending on how far I'm "planning" on going.

Tools:

Bearskin Bedroll, hatchet, knife, flares(2), fishing tackle(4), rifle cleaning kit(sometimes, depending on how low the rifle is and if I'm planning on being gone awhile), whetstone(1), crowbar, lantern and lantern oil(about .5kg on avg), can opener and a single torch.

 

Those items plus the 12.75kg of clothing put me in at 36.1kg, now remember, this is just the general exploration pack.  Even putting down a scrawny wolf puts me well over 40kg.  This same setup before would have me at about 24-26kg depending on equipment adjustments and for a long zone crossing exploration I would end up leaving with about 32kg(4-5kg of meat for the trip) knowing that weight would diminish rapidly within a day or so after a few meals.  As for the weights on medicals....due to a back and knee injury I happen to have a regular prescription for Tramadol, 90 to a bottle....weight... 34g....Those 20 painkillers I carry in game weigh 330g, well over 10x what the weight should be and the same goes for Antibiotics.

 

Moving on..Cabin Fever, again, way to easy to get.  I come in from 3 days out in the wild sleeping in caves and foraging wood and food.  I decided to make a new Bearskin Coat(30 hours).  On the second day of making the coat I get cabin fever?  Are you serious?  People get cabin fever when they sit around with nothing to do, people who are actually doing necessary things inside rarely get cabin fever.  Hell, drywallers and painters spend their nights in their homes and then all day in someone elses home.  Do they always have cabin fever?

 

Forlorn Muskeg....interesting zone....doesn't really add anything to the game.  Considering the windchill nerf you performed on clothing I'm imagining you did it just for this zone in mind since the windchill is constantly anywhere from -6 to -21 or lower and since warmth has nothing to do with windchill anymore this means that pretty much regardless of what you're wearing going in you're pretty much freezing most of the time.  When I'm in a "sheltered" area, fully warmed up, sleeping in a bearskin bedroll for 5 hours with no storms going on and I wake up already freezing there's a problem.  Because if that bearskin bedroll won't keep me warm, that bearskin coat won't do crap except weight more...see above for that.

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1 hour ago, sarudak said:

A fully kitted character previously was too strong against the cold. You could pretty much walk around all day outside without any issue. 

Too strong is one thing, they swung the pendulum way too far the other way on this update.  A fully kitted character should be able to move around in "good" winter conditions with no problem.  Storms and the like still affected your character before.  If a well kitted person couldn't function beyond the capacity they have currently we wouldn't have cities in these areas on this world now.

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I made my first wolf skin coat since the latest update, playing Stalker mode about 30 days in.  The coat weighed in a 4KG, twice the weight of my military coat that I've had since day 2, and with very similar specs.  That's quite a weight penalty to scare a wolf away once in a while, not to mention the wear and tear on one of my precious knife in making it, plus the 25 hours of time and effort risking cabin fever to make it, plus three rifle cartridges used specifically to kill wolves for the skins (one was earned the hard way).  Considering the weight of all the other clothing now needed to keep warm under most conditions, I'd say this was a total waste, at least for the first few hundred days.   On the bright side, I've explored most of Pleasant Valley and Coastal Highway, and have acquired over 60 rds. of ammo.  I don't think I've picked up anything close to that in stalker before, in only two areas.  

One question for experienced stalker players.  I've been playing at that level for a a little while now, probably started 25 games (I have a hard time playing on and on after getting past the first few of weeks of game time), and I've opened many safes, but have never found a single item in any of them playing stalker.  Is that typical? 

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No, it shouldn't be. Please report it on HL's bug database. Safes don't have to contain precious items necessarily, but there should always be a little something inside - even if it's just a can of peaches. That change should have made it to the live version a few months ago afaik.

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14 hours ago, quarter said:

I made my first wolf skin coat since the latest update, playing Stalker mode about 30 days in.  The coat weighed in a 4KG, twice the weight of my military coat that I've had since day 2, and with very similar specs.  That's quite a weight penalty to scare a wolf away once in a while, not to mention the wear and tear on one of my precious knife in making it, plus the 25 hours of time and effort risking cabin fever to make it, plus three rifle cartridges used specifically to kill wolves for the skins (one was earned the hard way).  Considering the weight of all the other clothing now needed to keep warm under most conditions, I'd say this was a total waste, at least for the first few hundred days.   On the bright side, I've explored most of Pleasant Valley and Coastal Highway, and have acquired over 60 rds. of ammo.  I don't think I've picked up anything close to that in stalker before, in only two areas.  

So just keep using your military coat?

Why would you expect a garment that was hand-made by an amateur first-timer out of animal skins they'd collected themselves with no prior experience to be better than one that was custom designed by the military for the purpose out of the best available materials? I've never found the military coat yet, so it seems to be a rare and valuable find. Look after it, and keep the wolfskin as a back up, I would.

On ammo availability: I think you might have got lucky with that run. I've nearly finished looting Coastal Highway on my current game, and I have a total of 5 rifle shells so far!

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2 hours ago, GiantAntCowboy said:

This could also be said about the Deer Skin boots, they weight more and don't really offer much benefit over the decent winter boots i found recently.

I think the idea is that you can make good replacement clothes as a last resort, not because they will be the best thing ever. 

A reasonable explanation and one that makes for interesting game play choices. Although I think weight is still an issue. Funnily enough, the clothes are probably fine the way they are. We should just have 5kg more carry weight.

And we;come to the forums @GiantAntCowboy and @quarter ^_^

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5 hours ago, Pillock said:

So just keep using your military coat?

Why would you expect a garment that was hand-made by an amateur first-timer out of animal skins they'd collected themselves with no prior experience to be better than one that was custom designed by the military for the purpose out of the best available materials? I've never found the military coat yet, so it seems to be a rare and valuable find. Look after it, and keep the wolfskin as a back up, I would.

On ammo availability: I think you might have got lucky with that run. I've nearly finished looting Coastal Highway on my current game, and I have a total of 5 rifle shells so far!

Yep, that's what I'm doing.  I've found three military coats so didn't consider them rare. (There seems to be a huge variation in the amount of clothing that spawns per game.  I started a previous game in Pleasant Valley and found only a dress shirt, light sweater and a pair of shoes at the Farmhouse and surrounds.) The previous versions give a significant bonus for the crafted items, so my expectation was that would be at least comparable.   

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2 hours ago, cekivi said:

A reasonable explanation and one that makes for interesting game play choices. Although I think weight is still an issue. Funnily enough, the clothes are probably fine the way they are. We should just have 5kg more carry weight.

And we;come to the forums @GiantAntCowboy and @quarter ^_^

I agree with allowing additional carry weight.  What I'd really like to see is the ability to craft a travois and/or a sled to haul gear with.  Travois are easy to make, need only a couple of limbs/branches and some cured gut or rope, and a good long one can allow someone to easily carry 100+ lbs for long distances.  A sled would be more permanent, maybe allowing carrying of portable shelters and provisions to wilderness areas.  

 

And thanks for the welcome :-)

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Something that has bugged me from the very start in this game is the weight of clothing.  Think about it, do you actually notice what you are wearing, in as far as it fits and is not binding, I certainly don't, this includes things slung from my hip on a belt such as a knife or a hatchet.

Other things in a well designed backpack also are not too hard to carry, let us not forget that an Infantryman in Afghanistan has been humping 35 or more Kilograms over and above his clothing and personal weaponry.

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I too am bugged by the weight limit of 30kg before being encumbered. A lot of the items seem way too overweight in comparison to real life items, so penalizing us at 30kg seems a bit steep. I work in a manual labour job and part of that requires me to lift and carry comfortably 50lbs, which is just over 22kgs, so I know what that kind of weight feels like, and it's not that bad. If I had to carry it in my arms I wouldn't want to travel several kilometres, but properly slung over my back and shoulders it would be hardly noticeable. I wonder if the inaccurate weight is a way to work around a volume issue, which would probably be harder to implement. A winter jacket may only weigh 3kg, but you can't pack 10 of them in a bag and carry them around comfortably. 

There could be a feat for traveling X many KM while overweight, allowing all future games to have say, 35 or 40kg limit, but steeper penalties beyond that. Or just give us a craftable sled/travois. 

I've never tracked the warmth/windchill bonus from game to game so I didn't notice a problem with how the layers have affected those numbers. As for the handmade vs found clothing, to me if you are going to go through the effort of collecting the materials and waiting the cure time, and spend all that time crafting them, they should be better than most of the things you can pick up in game. Granted that isn't the most realistic expectation, but why should I risk pissing off and being mauled by a bear just to get its hide, if the coat I eventually make from it is worse than what I'm currently wearing? Doing all of that isn't a 'last ditch effort' to stay warm, it's planned and prepared for. I've done very little crafting, for this reason, and am content to repair the items I find. Cloth isn't hard to get and between sewing kits and fishing tackle repairs are a good way to pass the time when the weather is bad.

The safe issue has happened to me as well. I thought I was just unlucky and didn't know there should always be at least something in there. Hope this is sorted out.

 

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On 1/2/2017 at 11:45 PM, Scyzara said:

No, it shouldn't be. Please report it on HL's bug database. Safes don't have to contain precious items necessarily, but there should always be a little something inside - even if it's just a can of peaches. That change should have made it to the live version a few months ago afaik.

Always? Hmmm. I have only watched this game since just around Christmas, and I would stipulate that more than half the safes I have seen opened contained anything.

But this is based on watching only. I own the game on Steam but have yet to be able to play it. So, this is not direct evidence.

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I think the 30kg weight limit is a reasonable one. But the equipment and food you can carry should be increased by reducing weight.

I've spent 8 days trekking in Lapland over winter totally self-sufficient with less than 30kg in a pack. That included shelter, food, knife and axe. The only thing I didn't have was a rifle and fule for making a fire. Btw, birch bark should give you a bonus for lighting fires!

I don't think clothes should be responsible for reducing your sprint but only the weight you carry. If I had an empty pack but clothed in furs why would I be slower?

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3 hours ago, Goggs said:

I don't think clothes should be responsible for reducing your sprint but only the weight you carry. If I had an empty pack but clothed in furs why would I be slower?

I think it has less to do with weight, more with bulk.  Think Ralphie in "The Christmas Story".

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Bulk might slow you down but not restrict your sprint distance compared with 30kg on your back!

To be fair I've never been dressed head to toe in furs but in modern insulated synthetic clothing I could run for hours in freezing conditions. Not sure I would want to do ANY running with 30kg on my back.

That brings me to another point. While moving and especially while running your body is generating much more heat. A thin baselayer, softshell, gloves leggings are all you need to keep warm running conditions as low as -30. The whole outfit would weigh about 2kg.

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3 hours ago, Goggs said:

That brings me to another point. While moving and especially while running your body is generating much more heat. A thin baselayer, softshell, gloves leggings are all you need to keep warm running conditions as low as -30. The whole outfit would weigh about 2kg.

Unfortunately the game doesn't quite model this ;)

But I agree. I've chopped firewood in -15 to -20. I was stripped down to my t-shirt and jeans and still sweating like crazy!

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1 hour ago, cekivi said:

Unfortunately the game doesn't quite model this ;)

But I agree. I've chopped firewood in -15 to -20. I was stripped down to my t-shirt and jeans and still sweating like crazy!

I too have pondered the heat bonus of strenuous activity and thought there should be a short term benefit, but as your posts inadvertantly points out, it cuts both ways. By that I mean perspiration.

It's interesting that they have implemented wet clothing already and this could be taken a step further. Certainly one of the rules of layering is that you can add or remove layers to moderate temp and therefore perspiration. If items get too wet from perspiration, you should have to remove them and put on dry clothes or dry the clothes you have by the fire (Always carry dry socks right). I can imagine my character humping up one of the long ridge lines and being completely over heated if in full gear, even if it is -20.

As it is now, I do add and remove layers in the game based on temp. I found that an external temp of 0 is the sweet spot where you neither get warm nor cold and layers can be added or removed to push the needle up or down to regulate this. If the temp drops I add layers till I get to 0 or higher if I need to warm up.

Of course you still have to carry the items in your pack or where them on your back but this is the case in reality anyway.

For me it's an immersion thing which is what I want most from this game. Others may find it to be too much micro management but it is a survival game and anything that adds more depth to that is cool with me.

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To be honest, it's the restriction of the sprint is the only thing that bothers me - and not even that much!

The wet is an interesting point. I fell through some thin ice and took an ice bath. Climbed out and bolted for the nearest shelter. I'd be wandering about so my character was goosed so I thought I'd just tuck him up in a bed in his soaking cloths. 9 hours later he was bone dry still wearing his clothing.

I don't know if there should be some kind of system where you dry clothes out kind of like with the skins?

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2 hours ago, Goggs said:

To be honest, it's the restriction of the sprint is the only thing that bothers me - and not even that much!

The wet is an interesting point. I fell through some thin ice and took an ice bath. Climbed out and bolted for the nearest shelter. I'd be wandering about so my character was goosed so I thought I'd just tuck him up in a bed in his soaking cloths. 9 hours later he was bone dry still wearing his clothing.

I don't know if there should be some kind of system where you dry clothes out kind of like with the skins?

I do know that if you remove the clothes and set them in front of a fire or stand in front of the fire with them on they dry faster than if just left alone.

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Sprint reduction is an almost useless stat in game unless you have over 50-60% of it combined. As far as I can tell, stamina regenerates at a fixed rate (ie lower maximum doesn't mean it regens slower), so max stamina only matters for short term sprints... And even for escaping from wolves, you don't need anywhere near your entire stamina bar (you just need to get a little distance after breaking line of sight).

Having said that, from a 'realism' PoV, clothing reducing your sprint bar actually makes a lot of sense. Bulky layers make it kind of hard to run (although honestly it would make more sense if it slowed down speed rather then duration you could sprint).

But the actual weight is absurd on some clothing items. While yes, even worn clothes are not weightless (spreading the weight over your body only helps to some extent), some of this stuff is ridiculously heavy, and overall since this patch to get similar temperatures as before you need to carry about 5-6kg more clothing then previously even if you avoid the super heavy clothing items and go for weight efficiency.

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The clothing weights are abstracted /exaggerated in order to give more value to decisions and trade offs in different conditions. I get that, and I'm OK with suspending realism for that reason (there's plenty of other things that you have to do that for anyway).

But I do think it would all make more sense if worn clothing weight was somehow separated from carried back pack weight. As it is, you think you're carrying a 30kg pack, when you're only really carrying 10 or 15kg, because of the clothing your wearing. I think this would help connect the player more with the inventory system so you could judge things more easily and make the information clearer. 

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The problem is the 'tradeoffs' on Interloper don't exist (there is either outright streaking or still freeze in best possible clothes but I don't think that is the intended 'choice') and on lower difficulties they don't matter (because it's much warmer on those modes even on day 200+ and the clothing you have is so much better that your running around with +10C feels like even late game Stalker, so you can pretty much strip half naked and still be fine so what 'choices' am I really making here when temperature isn't even a concern for me?)

I agree with the intent of the system but I've spent time playing on Interloper and Stalker (for testing this exact thing) since the update, and honestly that was my experience; on both modes I was never really making any decisions as they either were obvious or non-existent. Needs a bit more work maybe.

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