Condition recovers too quickly

[LonelySurvivor]

6 minutes ago, GorillaDust said:

This is very interesting and confirms something I've suspected for a while after a similar experience of being mauled by a bear at 40% that didn't kill me. I think that bear attacks are not designed to kill you, no matter what health you're at. I haven't ever 'died of bear attack' the way I have 'died of wolf attack.' I have only died of 'blood loss', 'freezing to death', etc in the aftermath. They make you bleed, suffer instant and serious temperature drop through damaged clothing, and a loss of equipment.

Then it's up to you to get to safety immediately to recuperate. That is an absolute adrenaline rush, and super-rewarding if you can do it after an unexpected attack deep in the wilderness. But once you're at your base, you have 'beat' that challenge, assuming you can attend to health damage and repair clothing. Not convinced that your exploration and fun should have to be put on hold for a week of gametime.

But now that I know a bear can't kill me - the bear brings very little to the table in the form of gameplay. I think next time I will just shoot him naked to avoid cloth loss in case I screw up again. Makes no sense.

[Pillock]

 

18 minutes ago, GorillaDust said:

I think that bear attacks are not designed to kill you, no matter what health you're at.

I'm think bear attacks take 90% of your current condition. So if you're at 100% before the attack you end up on 10%, while if you're on 50% beforehand you end up on 5% (90% of 50 is 5). However, I have died outright from a bear attack on The Hunted challenge before (I was on less than 10% when he got me).

[mystifeid]

37 minutes ago, LonelySurvivor said:

the bear brings very little to the table in the form of gameplay

That's sort of been a common complaint about all the animals lately.

[Hotzn]

There have been various discussions about long-term afflictions already on these forums. Hugh, you have heard old Hotzn. From what I recall we found out that it boils down to this: The game mechanics do not fully distinguish between different afflictions. While the procedures for getting rid of a certain affliction may vary (eg sleeping off a sprain, warming up after hypothermia), they all influence the same parameter: condition. If we had long-term afflictions - which I would like very much - the game would somehow have to distinguish between, let's say, damage from a bear mauling (the physical injuries being a long-term affliction) and freezing "damage" (which, as long as nothing  froze off, can really be cured overnight by sleeping in a warm bed). The fact that the game attributes all damage to a single parameter - condition - is a weakness. At the time, it is a strength, as it makes the game simpler. If we wanted more realism (and diversity) in the field of damage and healing, we would need a more complicated damage system. Similar to the new clothing system, but for damage and healing.

[cekivi]

@Hotzn: This calls for another trip to the archives!

 

[GorillaDust]

50 minutes ago, Hotzn said:

If we wanted more realism (and diversity) in the field of damage and healing, we would need a more complicated damage system. Similar to the new clothing system, but for damage and healing.

Excellent. That I can definitely get behind. As long as it is more robust, with more to think about/more options to consider, I'm all for it (on higher difficulty levels). As long as it's not just 'longer rest' or other equally uninteresting/game stopping methods.

^ Great thread started by @boshmi with some solid ideas and conversation linked above ^

[LonelySurvivor]

Guess we are all on the same page then - but I'm new so sorry for beating any old horses if that is what I did

[Kayosiv]

To be clear about my original post, condition taking longer to recuperate was more about a sense of immersion and actions having consequences that take longer than 1 day to play out.

Currently getting intestinal parasites is a BIG deal. It takes days (or a week+ even, depending on difficulty) to cure. I think bear attacks should be a Big deal. Wolf attacks should matter.

Now you can't go around having intestinal parasite level maladies afflict the character all the time because as many have said, sitting around a camp and chopping firewood and boiling water for a week is super boring.

However you don't have to be at 100% condition to do everything. 50% condition is enough to readily justify doing just about everything that isn't dealing with multiple wolves or a bear. I just want more of a "regaining your strength after disaster" kind of mindset to be added to the gameplay. Maybe you'll "do that dangerous thing in 2-3 days after you've gotten your strength back" should be a mindset in the game that changes the player's decisions and actions. It doesn't have to cripple the player into staying indoors, but it should be there.

[mystifeid]

5 hours ago, Kayosiv said:

To be clear about my original post, condition taking longer to recuperate was more about a sense of immersion and actions having consequences that take longer than 1 day to play out.

Currently getting intestinal parasites is a BIG deal. It takes days (or a week+ even, depending on difficulty) to cure. I think bear attacks should be a Big deal. Wolf attacks should matter.

Now you can't go around having intestinal parasite level maladies afflict the character all the time because as many have said, sitting around a camp and chopping firewood and boiling water for a week is super boring.

However you don't have to be at 100% condition to do everything. 50% condition is enough to readily justify doing just about everything that isn't dealing with multiple wolves or a bear. I just want more of a "regaining your strength after disaster" kind of mindset to be added to the gameplay. Maybe you'll "do that dangerous thing in 2-3 days after you've gotten your strength back" should be a mindset in the game that changes the player's decisions and actions. It doesn't have to cripple the player into staying indoors, but it should be there.

I think it might help to have experience with all game modes so that you could modify proposals according to the difficulty level. Having one generalized system might have the Stalker players nodding their heads in agreement but have the Interloper players recoiling in horror.

Intestinal parasites in Interloper is not a big deal. No, with a 20 day recovery time it will often be a slow death sentence. At best, I find coping with it is incredibly difficult.

Often that next dangerous thing is simply finding enough game to kill, harvest and cook. And which cannot be postponed for 2-3 days. Try surviving for any length of time in the Interloper Pleasant Valley and you might agree that a max 50% health is also likely going to be a death sentence.

I'm all for tweaking the first aid and health systems but imho, replacing what is currently used with one solution for all modes is never going to work.

[ArmagedDan]

22 hours ago, Hotzn said:

The game mechanics do not fully distinguish between different afflictions. While the procedures for getting rid of a certain affliction may vary (eg sleeping off a sprain, warming up after hypothermia), they all influence the same parameter: condition. If we had long-term afflictions - which I would like very much - the game would somehow have to distinguish between, let's say, damage from a bear mauling (the physical injuries being a long-term affliction) and freezing "damage" (which, as long as nothing  froze off, can really be cured overnight by sleeping in a warm bed). The fact that the game attributes all damage to a single parameter - condition - is a weakness. At the time, it is a strength, as it makes the game simpler. If we wanted more realism (and diversity) in the field of damage and healing, we would need a more complicated damage system.

I like the direction of this discussion, but I disagree that we'd need a more complicated damage system with multiple damage "types", which would not only be a good bit of coding but also introduce a lot of complexity.  The game starts a new player cold, on purpose, hiding most of its systems; that only works if there's a manageable number of systems to learn.   You already mentioned "long term afflictions", so why not accomplish this using the existing Condition and Affliction system?

 

The same way that some disease afflictions currently cap your stats, we could have new afflictions caused by massive injuries. Say if you take 50% or more condition loss in one event, there's a high chance of one happening.  This then uses a familiar system to track and treat.   Treatment would be a lot like a more external version of the worse diseases: requiring multiple days of applying treatments and rest.  Just shooting off some examples from the top of my head:

Grievous Injury:  Max Sprint and Condition reduced by 10%, Condition gain halved.  Treatment: A fresh bandage every day for three days

Mortal Injury: Max Sprint and Condition reduced by 25%, Condition gain quartered.  Treatment: Sewing Kit or Fishing Tackle use, then bandage + antiseptic (or OMB Dressing) every day for five days

 

Something like that.  Cold, I feel, is already pretty well covered with Frostbite and Hypothermia, so my interest would mainly lie in recovering from severe physical trauma.

[KD7BCH]

On 1/26/2017 at 6:49 AM, LonelySurvivor said:

Don't really agree here. There are 4 difficulty modes. Not sure why only 1 of them should be a challenge (which the challenge seems to come mostly from weather and a "fake" shortage of loot not from recovery times taking longer). With the exception of Pilgrim which is "tourist mode" all other modes should present a challenge especially if the player blunders (e.g. being mauled by a bear 3 times in a row).

They do present challenges, just at different levels. There is nothing "fake" about Interloper mode's reduced loot. This is exactly the essence of The Long Dark, which is prioritize what you have and survive a long time with only your own skills and abilities. I would agree that a sprained ankle should present more of a sustained loss/risk and that a bear mauling should be bad. However gameplay needs to be balanced into the mix as well. I feel the overall balance is the best it has ever been. 

[Troxism]

There is enough loot to live on Interloper for thousands of days, so idk why people complain about loot scarcity. There is plenty of stuff, just not really any 'luxuries'. You need surprisingly little to live in this game once you are established, esp with lvl 5 in a few specific skills. The only item you have any realistic chance of running out of would be cloth and only if you are constantly wasting it repairing fast degrading clothes like Sports Socks/Shirts for hundreds of days as there are literally hundreds of pieces of cloth you can harvest even on Interloper. Or you could run out of matches if you actually use any (but you can get away with never using any matches past the first few days).

But to be more on topic:

I agree that condition regain is absurdly fast. Even on Interloper (you can just constantly freeze and sleep it off). The way I deal with this is by sleeping only 1 hour at a time to minimise healing (when I am below 90%, obviously it's kind of a waste of time to sleep 1 hour at a time above this). This is because the way sleep healing works, the longer you sleep in a row the more you get overall, so if you do 'micro-sleeps' like this, you will regain condition FAR more slowly per hours spent sleeping. While this isn't too bad on Stalker (some beds will still give you 3-5% per hour doing it this way on Stalker, Bedroll is 1% and 'common' beds/cars are 2%), on Interloper it means you only regain 0.5% condition an hour sleeping in a bedroll, and 1-1.5% in most beds. That means only 5-15% per night of sleep depending on where you sleep and this makes condition far more of a big deal; if you get low you will spend days recovering and herbal tea actually becomes a useful item unlike normally where it's nearly useless.

This makes the game feel much better to play as getting attacked by animals or freezing half to death actually has consequences for longer then a day. You can't really do anything about the constant 1% condition gain for 'being healthy' even when awake, but it's the best you can currently do.

I also couple this with a few more rules (no staving, no using micro baits, no abusing wolf AI to kill deer for you ect) and it makes the game much more interesting and immersive esp on Interloper mode. I actually might do a write up on this at some point.

So if you are looking for a partial solution to the issue I suggest trying this. Obviously it would be better if you didn't have to do this tedious 'sleep one hour at a time' thing, but that will come with the ability to mod once the game is released.

[Pillock]

30 minutes ago, Troxism said:

There is enough loot to live on Interloper for thousands of days, so idk why people complain about loot scarcity. There is plenty of stuff, just not really any 'luxuries'. You need surprisingly little to live in this game once you are established, esp with lvl 5 in a few specific skills. The only item you have any realistic chance of running out of would be cloth and only if you are constantly wasting it repairing fast degrading clothes like Sports Socks/Shirts for hundreds of days as there are literally hundreds of pieces of cloth you can harvest even on Interloper. Or you could run out of matches if you actually use any (but you can get away with never using any matches past the first few days).

But to be more on topic:

I agree that condition regain is absurdly fast. Even on Interloper (you can just constantly freeze and sleep it off). The way I deal with this is by sleeping only 1 hour at a time to minimise healing (when I am below 90%, obviously it's kind of a waste of time to sleep 1 hour at a time above this). This is because the way sleep healing works, the longer you sleep in a row the more you get overall, so if you do 'micro-sleeps' like this, you will regain condition FAR more slowly per hours spent sleeping. While this isn't too bad on Stalker (some beds will still give you 3-5% per hour doing it this way on Stalker, Bedroll is 1% and 'common' beds/cars are 2%), on Interloper it means you only regain 0.5% condition an hour sleeping in a bedroll, and 1-1.5% in most beds. That means only 5-15% per night of sleep depending on where you sleep and this makes condition far more of a big deal; if you get low you will spend days recovering and herbal tea actually becomes a useful item unlike normally where it's nearly useless.

This makes the game feel much better to play as getting attacked by animals or freezing half to death actually has consequences for longer then a day. You can't really do anything about the constant 1% condition gain for 'being healthy' even when awake, but it's the best you can currently do.

I also couple this with a few more rules (no staving, no using micro baits, no abusing wolf AI to kill deer for you ect) and it makes the game much more interesting and immersive esp on Interloper mode. I actually might do a write up on this at some point.

So if you are looking for a partial solution to the issue I suggest trying this. Obviously it would be better if you didn't have to do this tedious 'sleep one hour at a time' thing, but that will come with the ability to mod once the game is released.

The systems to resolve this are in the game already. It's just that they need to be turned right up, because as it is now you barely notice them.

If you starve for a long time, you get a rest penalty which reduces the maximum level of that bar. I got mine down to about 60% by not eating for 2 days; this meant I was physically unable to sleep for more than about 5 hours at a time, which obviously would affect my condition regain as well as my load carrying capacity and movement range between rests. The problem is, once I did start eating again the penalty very quickly vanished completely, so in the end it didn't really affect the condition regain at all. It could be much, much harsher than this, I feel, and apply in many more situations.

I'd advocate this rest penalty kicking in as soon as you start to lose condition (certainly from starvation, at least), be much faster to accumulate once it starts, and disappear much more gradually after you get food down you again. This, in addition to slower overall condition regain, which I think is needed regardless, would not only mitigate the farcical abuse of starvation that's possible now, but it would make sense to the context of the game: if you're starving, you're always tired but unable to get restful sleep.

The rest penalty could also be applied to other things like freezing or dehydration or being injured. And I'd echo what others have said about suffering from sprains or lacerations: the initial treatment shouldn't make the injury disappear right away; it should just prevent the immediate condition loss or other side-effects temporarily. Repeated treatments over a longer period of time would give these afflictions much more meaning and value within the game. It would force you to use up your medical supplies and deliberately go out searching for more, like you would actively search for saplings if you ran out of arrows.

As an example, I had a situation happen to me recently when I carelessly managed to acquire parasites twice in the space of my first 20-odd days of a Stalker run. The upshot was that I ran out of treatments for it on my starting map and had to abandon my normal routine to urgently search out mushrooms in other maps. It gave a me an unexpected and welcome sense of purpose, a temporary mission to complete which organically appeared through the game mechanics. There is loads of potential within the health mechanics for much more of this kind of thing, and it's ripe for exploiting. But it does need the values ramped up to increase the chances of the player getting into these situations, and the the means to solve the afflictions in deeper, more interesting and rewarding ways to be made available.

[Troxism]

Actually once you get this 'max rest penalty' you can sleep as much as you want regardless (as your bar is never full, the game lets you sleep as much as you like). This is one of the reasons starvation means you can drink less water (it takes less water to sleep then pass time). At least it was this way 2 versions ago, I haven't really tested starvation again since then, so if that has changed, it's a nice step in the right direction. But honestly it's very simple to fix starvation; allow calories to be negative (with no cap). That way if you starve for a long time you have to eat enough to compensate for the energy your body is still burning (crudely simulating the loss of body weight from starvation). This would completely end starvation as a beneficial thing as it would be a pure negative to starve (which makes sense). And it wouldn't be very complex.

But all this talk of starvation is kind of off topic.

[Pillock]

19 minutes ago, Troxism said:

But all this talk of starvation is kind of off topic.

It's about having a longer-term effect to losing condition, for whatever reason it's lost. A max-sleep-time penalty would serve this purpose to an extent. That's all I meant, really, but perhaps I did digress and get a bit long-winded!