Fitness & Stamina


OptimusCrime

Recommended Posts

Hey Long Dark adventurers. I've had this on my mind for a while now, and couldn't really find a post for it, so thought i'd see if anyone else had the same idea.

First of - I love the inventory system. It's one of my favourite parts of The Long Dark. I love having to pick and choose what's going to help me most depending on what that day may bring. I love having to weigh up the rifle vs bow scenarios, cooked meat vs less weighty chocolate bars, beef jerky etc, and just generally having to spend time making sure you don't overburden yourself.

I have one little niggling thing with it though in it's current state. While definitely not game-breaking, I still feel it's been overlooked a little bit, and if we are aiming for a 'realistic' style of game, I feel it could be quite valuable.

I used to do cadets (army training) back in the day, and was forced to carry around 30-40kg packs each day, for kilometres on end, with only a couple of breaks here or there. At first, this was one of the most punishing things to do, yet after a few weeks, you adjusted. Your body could carry more, you could go further with it, and basically you got used to having an extra 30kg on your body.

Basically, i'm just wondering if there's going to be anything introduced about 'fitness' in general in the game. I feel if you've been surviving for 100+ days, with a mostly full-pack, should it not be reasonable to expect you can carry it a LOT longer than you could have on day 1 of surviving? Again, this is in no way game-breaking, but would be a really neat feature of almost 'increasing' your max carry weight over time.

Even Knights back in the day used to spend a lot of time in their 60kg+ armour sets to get used to fighting/manoeuvring with all the extra weight.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some kind of progressive adaptive mechanics have been proposed numerous times. So far nothing.

Also, those heavy armors youre referring 2 were used solely by mounted knights and only when mounted(mainly because if such knight was knocked down he couldnt get up on his own). Armors of those who fought on foot weighted around 20-30 kilos and no practical armors weighted 60+ kilos(as decoration maybe).

Also, in game your recommended carry weight is measly 30 kilos(like youre on a friggin hike thru a park, so not to overburden yourself and remain fresh for happy hour), that considering that it includes everything, including clothes that character is wearing and pocket change. Considering conditions presented in game, player should be able to carry 2 if not 3 times more, if needed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

+1 to this. It does make sense that your cardiovascular fitness should increase and eventually plateau out after two or three months of game time. Aligned with that, your risk of lower limb injury should gradually reduce as you become more adept at moving across uneven ground carrying weight. I think that would neatly represent an increase in fitness as well as skill level. I'm not so convinced about a significant increase in load capacity though; thirty kilos seems about right for an average adult to move with all day through that kind of environment. Having spent most of my professional career moving and fighting (neither wolves nor bears, thankfully) with weight on my back (and front), I don't think a big increase would be realistic. It's as much about increased risk of injury as it is about endurance - a loss of balance which might otherwise result in a twisted ankle easily becomes a compound fracture when you're carrying fifty per cent of your body weight. Ninety kilos is over a hundred per cent for a lot of guys, and you'd need to be seriously desperate to attempt moving more than a few hundred meters through deep snow carrying that sort of weight. A lot of people would struggle to stand unaided, never mind walk. A sled, on the other hand...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/24/2017 at 9:35 PM, Dirmagnos said:

Also, those heavy armors youre referring 2 were used solely by mounted knights and only when mounted(mainly because if such knight was knocked down he couldnt get up on his own). Armors of those who fought on foot weighted around 20-30 kilos and no practical armors weighted 60+ kilos(as decoration maybe).

Yeah I may have got it wrong, but I think the sentiment is still the same; if you constantly move around with 30+ kgs all the time, you will adjust quite nicely to it.

On 4/25/2017 at 3:12 AM, Calico Jack said:

I don't think a big increase would be realistic. It's as much about increased risk of injury as it is about endurance - a loss of balance which might otherwise result in a twisted ankle easily becomes a compound fracture when you're carrying fifty per cent of your body weight. Ninety kilos is over a hundred per cent for a lot of guys, and you'd need to be seriously desperate to attempt moving more than a few hundred meters through deep snow carrying that sort of weight. A lot of people would struggle to stand unaided, never mind walk.

Completely agree. I think it's unrealistic to have your max carry weight increased to say 90kg's (Unless your character is a God), but I still like the idea you bring up of decreasing your risk of sprained ankles/wrists from moving around with a pack that size. 

A sled would be hilarious to use I think hahaha, if you could somehow jump on it and just tear it down mountains... Sure, you might be in an area where wolves and bears will maul your face, but who doesn't love a bit of sledding down a hill? They probably wouldn't attack you if they saw some crazed man flying down a hill on a sled just screaming haha...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, OptimusCrime said:

Completely agree. I think it's unrealistic to have your max carry weight increased to say 90kg's (Unless your character is a God), but I still like the idea you bring up of decreasing your risk of sprained ankles/wrists from moving around with a pack that size. 

Why not ? Even untrained person can lift up and carry around 50kg bags(for a while at least). If youre doing it long enough, then you can carry them around all day long.

And that considering that those bags come as one big uncomfortable object. With couple weeks under his belt in conditions present in the game, with weight evenly distributed, player should have no problems carrying 50-60 kilos in total all day long. And if need arises then even more(maybe with some penalties, like slightly increased chance of sprains).

Again, we are not talking about comfortable hike to enjoy nature, on a weekend, for a desk jokey, we are talking about survival. With no temptations and poisons of modern consumerism culture. And on a diet that mainly consists of meat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.