Suggestions to the game and the interface


tijagi

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1. TRAINING MAP

You should make a training map, which would teach the player how to interact with the game in certain situations.

I personally went through the keybindings before starting my first game, but I completely forgot about the radial menu and didn’t know that there’s such a thing as a snow shelter until I’ve already played for tens of hours and lost many times to the frost. I’ve also seen other people around here forgetting about ’paper doll view’, which shows the state of clothes. Thankfully, I have used it well. And the training map I suggest to make, may be somewhat interactive.

For that snow shelter, for example, it may spawn the player outside, then tell him to go to a house and collect some, cloth, then go outside to the middle of the forest, collect enough sticks, start middle blizzard on his head and tell the player: ‘Pal! It’s going dark and you’re going to freeze! You have almost no chances to return, because your footsteps were buried with snow, so make a snow shelter, while you still have these 72% of condition!’

Teach him that he can make tinder for sticks, bands and fishing tackles WITHOUT the workbench and light.

2. HOT WATER

I don’t understand, why the hot water I did just boil, cannot be consumed as heated tea and provide me with warmth, so I could suffer less from the cold outside? That shouldn’t be hard to implement.

3. USE BED AND BEDROLL SIMULTANEOUSLY

In real life, I sometimes used them at the same time for warmth. Why can’t I do so in The Long Dark? It’s only logical to use them both in the very cold places, such as Forestry lookout in Mystery lake, where the temperature inside may fall below zero.

4. MAKE PLACING THE CAMPFIRE SIMPLE

I once wanted to start a campfire and almost froze to death seeing it always red, red and RED wherever I wanted to place it. I have lost 10% of my health (leaving me with only 20%), while trying to start a fire. I was in panic, but suddenly found out that I can only place it in the very close proximity from myself. THEN DAMN WHY I SEE THIS RED CAMPFIRE MODEL LIKE I CAN PLACE IT LITERALLY A MILE AWAY? I guess you should allow the player to start a campfire wherever it is actually possible, and if it’s not near him, then make the player go on autopilot to that place and start making the fire on the spot the player has selected.

5. MAKE THE WIND WORKING FOR THE PLAYER AND AGAINST HIM

If the wind blows from the player’s side to a deer or a wolf side, a deer or a wolf should spot the player more easily/quickly. If the player runs away from the wolves in the wind/blizzard, and the wind blows from the wolves’ side, they should give up on finding him quicker.

6. LET THE PLAYER MAKE A CLOAK TO HIDE HIS APPEARANCE

A coat and a hat made of moss/sticks should help the player to blend with nature when he leans to the trees, which in its turn should help him avoid being noticed by both predators and prey. Putting on and adjusting a clock should take a couple of minutes, so it would be stupid to put in on, when you’ve been spotted.

Of course, moss and sticks alone wouldn’t make a proper cloak, one would have to bind them somehow… There can be two kinds of cloak – a simple one would be tucking sticks and moss in the player’s current clothes (or let him make a separate outfit for the cloak?) and a better cloak that is worn separately and is made on a workbench.

7. GIVE THE PLAYER A MAP

My silly attempts to create a map of Mystery lake were so laughable that they were useless. Yes I connected some places, but creating a proper map requires weeks of stupid walking and still people with topographic idiocy like me wouldn’t be able to make a good map themselves. Everyone uses the maps from the wiki anyway, so adding a map in the game would change nothing in the gameplay. But for the game itself it would serve as a good characteristic: for today the player has to switch between the game window and his browser. Make the game better by removing this necessity! There’s nothing wrong in getting a map of Mystery lake at the Camp office, I’d say there should be a wall dedicated to the map. Oh, that’s a good idea too. Though a map on paper, that the player carries with him, is what I thought of initially.

8. LET THE PLAYER MAKE TARGETS TO PRACTISE THE BOW

I find the bow unusable at its current state. On Stalker and above I wouldn’t pick it against a wolf – it’s only raison d’etre, because you can’t hit a deer from far away. The accuracy at no master lever is awfully bad, which makes me think, that it’d be better to make targets and practise on them first – mastership doesn’t seem to bump without successful hits, and getting them is nearly impossible on Stalker. Excuse me, but I consider going against a wolf on Stalker imbecility just for the purpose of honing bowmanship. I would do that when having at least 70% hp to get meat or a hide, but not for the bowmanship. No. I can’t imagine how much times should I put my life at risk just to get one level in it this way. No.

9. CHANGE THE WAY PLAYER GETS TIME

I suppose that ’??? of day time left’ were introduced intentionally, because at dusk it’s hard to tell the time? That’s cool. But make it even better: force the player to get time by the use of certain devices using the sun (make a gnomon at his homestead and use his palm to check how much fingers above horizon is the sun). Also as a bonus add a rare item: mechanical watches with autowinding. Such watches may work for decades without service and are inexpensive in real life. But force the player calibrate the watches before he can use them by standing at noon at a sunny place while checking his own shadow (Noon is for GMT, for Canada probably lower).

I really enjoyed checking the level of oxygen on my watch in the game Metro 2033, so introduce watches without fear: it is a fantastic feeling only adding the experience. And certainly easier, than implementing getting time from the nature.

10. LET THE PLAYER HIDE HIS SMELL WITH PUTTING SNOW IN HIS MOUTH

I’m not sure whether it’s true, but I’ve seen it in some film, that hunters put snow in their mouth to hide the smell of a human from the animals.

11. USE GUN AND CROWBAR TO BREAK ICE

This one is just a wish. If I am so rich (or stupid) that I can shoot to break ice, I want to do so. In case of using the rifle, there should appear 6–10 marks around the ice-hole – player shoots them, then he must use something (hands may be used too, but with a small risk of breaking and heavy wearing on the gloves) to break the ice.

12. HARVESTING CORPSES BY PARTS AND TAKING THEM HOME

Allow the player to take rabbit corpses with him – they shouldn’t weigh so much, and dissecting them at home, in warmth, would safe time, that the player could spend outside. I mean that I can go outside, see that I’ve caught some rabbits, and take them with me instead of staying in the cold and losing condition. Chopping off a leg from a deer corpse would be fine, if it would take less time than dissecting. Would be useful to quickly harvest some meat before wolves spawned.

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4 hours ago, tijagi said:

4. MAKE PLACING THE CAMPFIRE SIMPLE

I once wanted to start a campfire and almost froze to death seeing it always red, red and RED wherever I wanted to place it. I have lost 10% of my health (leaving me with only 20%), while trying to start a fire. I was in panic, but suddenly found out that I can only place it in the very close proximity from myself. THEN DAMN WHY I SEE THIS RED CAMPFIRE MODEL LIKE I CAN PLACE IT LITERALLY A MILE AWAY? I guess you should allow the player to start a campfire wherever it is actually possible, and if it’s not near him, then make the player go on autopilot to that place and start making the fire on the spot the player has selected.

How would you selecting a distant point and making the player auto-travel to that spot any different than you walking yourself over to that location and plunking down your campfire? If you're in a situation where you are losing condition, you're still going to take the same hit either way. Auto-traveling would be especially silly when, by selecting a distant point, you have no way to know ahead of time if it's actually a good place for a fire; i.e. sheltered from the current wind direction.

4 hours ago, tijagi said:

11. USE GUN AND CROWBAR TO BREAK ICE

This one is just a wish. If I am so rich (or stupid) that I can shoot to break ice, I want to do so. In case of using the rifle, there should appear 6–10 marks around the ice-hole – player shoots them, then he must use something (hands may be used too, but with a small risk of breaking and heavy wearing on the gloves) to break the ice.

Why in the world would you want to use your extremely limited supply of bullets to try and break open an ice fishing hole? O.o

That's not even considering the fact that the ice, to be able to support the weight of a hut and equipment, would be way too thick for that. Along with the fact that it would be extremely dangerous between the chance for a ricochet or for flying bits of ice or a shattered bullet to hit you (eye injury, which I know we don't have, but it's still a logical flaw in the suggestion).

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13 hours ago, tijagi said:

1. TRAINING MAP

2. HOT WATER

3. USE BED AND BEDROLL SIMULTANEOUSLY

4. MAKE PLACING THE CAMPFIRE SIMPLE

5. MAKE THE WIND WORKING FOR THE PLAYER AND AGAINST HIM

6. LET THE PLAYER MAKE A CLOAK TO HIDE HIS APPEARANCE

7. GIVE THE PLAYER A MAP

8. LET THE PLAYER MAKE TARGETS TO PRACTISE THE BOW

9. CHANGE THE WAY PLAYER GETS TIME

10. LET THE PLAYER HIDE HIS SMELL WITH PUTTING SNOW IN HIS MOUTH

11. USE GUN AND CROWBAR TO BREAK ICE

12. HARVESTING CORPSES BY PARTS AND TAKING THEM HOME

1. It's called Mystery Lake! In terms of an interactive tutorial, there might be something like this included in Story Mode when the game reaches full release? Who knows.

2 & 3. Agreed.

7. I have never used outside-of-game maps. I've never even seen one. I wouldn't mind if they introduced a findable paper map in the game as a loot item, if it was rare; but I wouldn't want it to be very detailed or comprehensive, and I don't think it's particularly necessary anyway. Any type of HUD-based map would make the game worse, not better, in my opinion. Learning the environment is part of the exploration challenge, and we don't need inbuilt shortcuts. If you want to use third-party guides to help you, that's up to you, but please don't assume that everybody else wants or needs to do the same.

8. There is an archery target near the red barn in Pleasant Valley. You can use that to practice on. (Or you can use deer to practice on!) Shooting wolves with the bow is indeed risky and difficult. But that's fine by me.

11. I think the idea of using the butt of the rifle to break the ice in fishing huts is a reasonable one; but shooting it open is a bit far-fetched. You can already use the prybar to break the ice.

12. This is a difficult one. Although it does make sense to do this, if you could bring a carcass indoors to butcher it, it would have a big impact on the overall balance of the game. As things are, collecting food is the only real survival reason to go outside at all (you can stay warm, rested and hydrated by staying indoors as long as you have fuel, which isn't difficult to acquire). If you were able to harvest food indoors as well, it would make the game an awful lot easier, as well as giving much more prominence to Cabin Fever... and I don't like the idea of that!

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Welcome to the forums @tijagi ^_^

Mystery Lake on Pilgrim difficulty is the closest thing to a tutorial/entry level map that the game currently has. Mystery Lake offers one of the easiest starts and has a sampling of all of the mechanics in the game except for forging. Pilgrim will also result in a warmer environment and animals will fear you instead of trying to constantly eat you.

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On 17.01.2017 at 5:28 AM, SteelFire said:

 

How would you selecting a distant point and making the player auto-travel to that spot any different than you walking yourself over to that location and plunking down your campfire? If you're in a situation where you are losing condition, you're still going to take the same hit either way. Auto-traveling would be especially silly when, by selecting a distant point, you have no way to know ahead of time if it's actually a good place for a fire; i.e. sheltered from the current wind direction.

There is a difference in the game interface responsiveness

Now: Move campfire here: red. Move campfire there: red. What the heck. 

Then: Move campfire here: red. Move campfire there: green. Let’s make campfire there.

If I can place a campfire on a spot, I should be able to select that spot without walking up to it. New players do not understand why they see red campfire model wherever they move their mouse to place it. But when they are able to select a campfire spot, they will easily understand that placing it a mile away is not what they want. The problem now is that placing is restricted and anti-intuitive.

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On 17.01.2017 at 7:01 AM, selfless said:

The wind thing already exists for smell detection.  But given that smell range is currently almost the same as visual detection range, I can see how many might not notice.  There's a separate hearing detection range, too, ICYWW.

I wondered, if it already exists, but in the end I thought that it probably doesn’t. Now I see why.

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8 hours ago, tijagi said:

If I can place a campfire on a spot, I should be able to select that spot without walking up to it. New players do not understand why they see red campfire model wherever they move their mouse to place it. But when they are able to select a campfire spot, they will easily understand that placing it a mile away is not what they want. The problem now is that placing is restricted and anti-intuitive.

If you click LMB when the campfire template is red, it tells you why you can't light it. It might say it's too far away, it might say it's too windy or it might say it's an invalid location, as appropriate.

The information is there for new players. Perhaps it could be a bit clearer, but I never had a problem with it.

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  • 1 month later...
On 20.2.2017 at 1:13 AM, tijagi said:

14. LET THE PLAYER SHIT IN THE EMPTY TIN CANS AND THROW THEM AT WOLVES WHILE LYING IN SNOW SHELTER

As our prudent and wise cousins the chimpanzees have taught us, throwing feces is most efficient if one does particularly NOT put them into tin cans in the first place.

-1 for this nonsense-suggestion. And now let's please stop talking about preschool toilet humor. ;)

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