On sleeping, rest and condition and why they need tuning.

[starfighter441]

On 6/26/2017 at 0:51 PM, nicko said:

In this game if  your not tired you can still rest (cat nap call it what you want) its the same thing! or am i missing your point? you either sleep or rest.

 

No, there is quite a difference between Pass Time in the game, and the light doze that I fall into in my opinion.  The Pass time option is just that, time goes by but you still get tired.  A catnap refreshes you, well at least it does me.

 

[JoE Smash]

I made it to the second page and got tired of reading. My take is this, if someone gets tired enough they can sleep anywhere, bedroll or no. You can sit on a hard wooden chair with your arms on a hard desk and rest your face on your arms. I know, I did this in pretty much any 8AM class in college. You can sleep on a floor. It isn't comfortable, but you can do it if you are exhausted and have no other choice.

The only parameter is how restful is the sleep...? So how about while sleeping without a bedroll, bed, or car seat you fill up the rest meter half as fast while sleeping in such a way. Also the rest bar will never fill more than half full. Once the bar fills half way you wake up, and cannot sleep anymore in those conditions of no proper bed.

Lastly as far as being too cold....all beds, bedrolls, cars, etc. provide a warmth bonus for using them. Obviously you are sleeping without that bonus....that is the penalty....not getting a bonus.

Problem solved. I get a cookie!

[ChillPlayer]

Bedroll is a gameplay mechanic and it should be regarded as such, it's about being prepared and think about where and how you will sleep. This is especially critical on Interloper where you don't spawn with a Bedroll in your backpack and thus have to plan your routes very carefully until you find one.

As far as reality goes I agree with @cekivi's post that you can become hypothermic when you sleep on the ground unprotected, even inside a house and especially inside a cave.

 

[Pillock]

4 hours ago, ChillPlayer said:

Bedroll is a gameplay mechanic and it should be regarded as such, it's about being prepared and think about where and how you will sleep. This is especially critical on Interloper where you don't spawn with a Bedroll in your backpack and thus have to plan your routes very carefully until you find one.

As far as reality goes I agree with @cekivi's post that you can become hypothermic when you sleep on the ground unprotected, even inside a house and especially inside a cave.

 

Except that the introduction of snowshelters made this argument pretty much void.

You can sleep in a snow shelter without a bedroll, and you can place them nearly anywhere you want in an outside location. And you are sleeping directly on the snow without protection. The reason this upsets the balance somewhat is that there isn't an equivalent mechanism for constructing makeshift sleeping places indoors or in caves, where it would be more sensible to do so.

[ChillPlayer]

23 minutes ago, Pillock said:

Except that the introduction of snowshelters made this argument pretty much void.

funny you mention this, I actually had in mind to write something about Snowshelters at first but thought I skip it because it's not directly related. Snowshelters don't work the same way as you implied, for one you have to kinda anticipate when you are going to use one because it takes a while to build it. It's no good use when you start building it while already freezing, on Interloper you'll die first. Secondly to be safe (again, Interloper, maybe Stalker) you need a constant fire going on and best sleep only by the hour, because it can get cold enough in the Snowshelter that you'll freeze to death without a fire and wolves and bears can attack you when you're inside. So no, it's not the same as just sitting down on a chair.

My primary use for Snowshelters is in Interloper to not get Cabin Fever while searching for the Bedroll. Once I have that, I don't build Shelters anymore.

[Pillock]

4 minutes ago, ChillPlayer said:

funny you mention this, I actually had in mind to write something about Snowshelters at first but thought I skip it because it's not directly related. Snowshelters don't work the same way as you implied, for one you have to kinda anticipate when you are going to use one because it takes a while to build it. It's no good use when you start building it while already freezing, on Interloper you'll die first. Secondly to be safe (again, Interloper, maybe Stalker) you need a constant fire going on and best sleep only by the hour, because it can get cold enough in the Snowshelter that you'll freeze to death without a fire and wolves and bears can attack you when you're inside. So no, it's not the same as just sitting down on a chair.

My primary use for Snowshelters is in Interloper to not get Cabin Fever while searching for the Bedroll. Once I have that, I don't build Shelters anymore.

That's true.

But it does lead to some fairly bizarre decision making: for example, you come across a small hut with no bed, so instead of hunkering down inside for the night you rip the curtains down and pick up some nearby sticks from outside, then sleep in a hole in the snow just outside the door. Or, you find a nice warm cave, and you have some spare clothes with you and some wood; instead of cobbling together a makeshift bed inside the (relative) warmth of the cave, you again have to sleep in the snow just outside the entrance.

It just feels weird. And I've been in that position on a number of occasions.

[JoE Smash]

3 hours ago, Pillock said:

That's true.

But it does lead to some fairly bizarre decision making: for example, you come across a small hut with no bed, so instead of hunkering down inside for the night you rip the curtains down and pick up some nearby sticks from outside, then sleep in a hole in the snow just outside the door. Or, you find a nice warm cave, and you have some spare clothes with you and some wood; instead of cobbling together a makeshift bed inside the (relative) warmth of the cave, you again have to sleep in the snow just outside the entrance.

It just feels weird. And I've been in that position on a number of occasions.

What you said is true, it makes sense, and the current ability to only make a bed outside in the snow is dumb in comparison. I agree with your argument wholeheartedly...

It would make much more sense to implement my idea about less restful sleep in a house/cave with no bed or bedroll. Rest bar fills half as fast and will never fill more than half way without a proper bed.

This will allow you some ability to rest a little until you find a suitable bed or bedroll to rest properly....so you don't flatly die of exhaustion because your character was too stupid to just lie down on the floor in a building for a few hours.

Having a half filled rest bar is also severely limiting in itself, as you cannot make it to the top of most ropes now without being fully rested. Go try it, you'll see, lol....

[ChillPlayer]

4 hours ago, Pillock said:

That's true.

But it does lead to some fairly bizarre decision making: for example, you come across a small hut with no bed, so instead of hunkering down inside for the night you rip the curtains down and pick up some nearby sticks from outside, then sleep in a hole in the snow just outside the door.

It get's even more bizarre when you camp at the Farmstead with multiple Beds inside but chose to sleep outside behind the broken Barn in a Snowshelter, just to not catch freakin Cabin Fever

I know what you mean but I live with this "sleep-only-in-bedroll-or-bed-(or shelter)-situation" for over two years now and I kinda accepted it from the beginning as a given rule in the game, because it's one of many factors why TLD can succesfully put you in a real survival mind without being in a true survival situation, you know, because we are usually sitting at home in front of a PC and all that. I think the devs made it clear several times that TLD does not strive to be a survival simulation but it tries to induce the feeling, thinking, decision making and so on you would experience if you'd were in a real survival situation. In TLD you have to take your bedroll with you, in RL you would have to maintain your bed, keep it free of bugs, spiders and mice (if outside), keep it dry and so on. Thank Fluffy we don't have to do this here, all we have to do is to keep a well maintained Bedroll in our backpack. But failure to do so may have the same drastic consequences as not taking care of your survival-bed in RL. 

[Liquidlead]

I agree some other mechanism(s) needs put in place besides the only ability to sleep/rest on a bed or the bedroll.  

I'm going to die of fatigue at Carters Hydro Dam because I forgot my bedroll; even though near fully hydrated, full tummy and no injuries.  Then, while there I picked up a whole new suite of coats, sweaters and a shirt I could lay on.  Not only that, there's a bunch of large flat cardboard and cardboard boxes laying around to make a somewhat insulated cushion to sleep on.

 

[JoE Smash]

 

18 minutes ago, Liquidlead said:

I agree some other mechanism(s) needs put in place besides the only ability to sleep/rest on a bed or the bedroll.  

I'm going to die of fatigue at Carters Hydro Dam because I forgot my bedroll; even though near fully hydrated, full tummy and no injuries.  Then, while there I picked up a whole new suite of coats, sweaters and a shirt I could lay on.  Not only that, there's a bunch of large flat cardboard and cardboard boxes laying around to make a somewhat insulated cushion to sleep on.

 

Someone started another thread about the many uses of cattails in survival, and one of the uses is pulling cattail heads apart (the part we use for tinder) and using them for bedding. I have a swamp behind my house and I have played with cattail heads and when you break them up they are really soft and fluffy like cotton. Indians have used them for soft bedding. Obviously that could be used with cloth in our inventory or the cardboard you found to make a makeshift temporary bed.

Just because finding a bedroll is a big part of the current Interloper survival mechanic, doesn't mean they can't implement temporary bedding like snow shelters. They should degrade quickly and need constant maintenance like snow shelters, and you can't repackage the cattail heads after pulling them apart so you have to leave them there when moving on. You should be able to get your cloth back though.

[JoE Smash]

On Tuesday, June 06, 2017 at 1:39 PM, pi972 said:

Nicko, pay attention to the rest of my post. The impression I was going for (and maybe I could have worded it better, you're right) was: "Why is it that I can NEVER sleep if I'm not tired, even though there are situations where I should be able to?"

 

 

No need to word it better, I am pretty sure almost everyone else understood your post. It's him, not you. He does the same thing in all of my threads too. He acts intentionally confused and obtuse. You are better off just pretending like he never commented....

[Carbon]

 The phrase " Why is it that I can NEVER sleep if I'm not tired, even though there are situations where I should be able to?" is nonsense.

 I'm not defending anyone, but all we have here are words and if someone isn't as articulate as they might believe themselves to be, then what can we do?

 On topic: Bringing RL into the discussion simply needs to stop. It's a ridiculous way to argue a point in this context. Ridiculous, as in "open to ridicule". If one can't argue a point staying within the context of the game then one has no argument at all.

[JoE Smash]

4 minutes ago, Carbon said:

 The phrase " Why is it that I can NEVER sleep if I'm not tired, even though there are situations where I should be able to?" is nonsense.

 I'm not defending anyone, but all we have here are words and if someone isn't as articulate as they might believe themselves to be, then what can we do?

 On topic: Bringing RL into the discussion simply needs to stop. It's a ridiculous way to argue a point in this context. Ridiculous, as in "open to ridicule". If one can't argue a point staying within the context of the game then one has no argument at all.

Maybe it would help if you explained what you mean by "context of the game," and what you think the context of the game is.

I thought the game was a survival simulator game with many elements that mimic real life, hence so many people comparing what you can do or should be able to do in the game, because you can in real life. Like sleeping more if severely injured...

[Carbon]

 It's not a simulation of anything. At every turn we are faced with complete fantasy and in fact, it's much more difficult to find something that is close to reality than not. I would call TLD's sandbox a fantasy survival game.

 If you go back to page 2, I make my context argument quite clearly, I believe. In one discussion with pi972 I was mildly perturbed and didn't express myself as well as I may have wanted but later with slackhideo I was more on point. I'm not being lazy, but I don't want to re-write what I wrote.

[Pillock]

15 hours ago, Carbon said:

 It's not a simulation of anything. At every turn we are faced with complete fantasy and in fact, it's much more difficult to find something that is close to reality than not. I would call TLD's sandbox a fantasy survival game.

 If you go back to page 2, I make my context argument quite clearly, I believe. In one discussion with pi972 I was mildly perturbed and didn't express myself as well as I may have wanted but later with slackhideo I was more on point. I'm not being lazy, but I don't want to re-write what I wrote.

The thing is, the game is set in Canada, which is a real place. This means that the player has certain expectations as to how the 'world' will work when they interact with it. The more the game sets rules for the player which don't correspond to these real-world expectations, the more likely it is to jolt them out of their illusion of being 'in' the world rather than in front of a computer at home playing a game. And for a game like TLD, that is generally better avoided if at all possible, in my view.

Therefore, I think it's unwise to dismiss discussions about 'realism' out of hand. It is valid to compare the game to the real world, up to a point, because the game is set in the real world, albeit a stylised version of it in imagined circumstances.

The argument here is that maybe the game would be improved if our characters could have the option to substitute the bedroll for something improvised on the spot for indoor locations - the same as we already can for outdoor locations. Part of the reasoning for this is that it would feel more intuitive to the scenario being depicted. I don't see anything wrong with that. There is a debate about how it would affect the overall game-balance, but there is also a valid part of the discussion to be had around whether or not it improves the 'feel' of the game in terms of immersion and perceived realism.

[Carbon]

8 hours ago, Pillock said:

The thing is, the game is set in Canada, which is a real place. This means that the player has certain expectations as to how the 'world' will work when they interact with it. The more the game sets rules for the player which don't correspond to these real-world expectations, the more likely it is to jolt them out of their illusion of being 'in' the world rather than in front of a computer at home playing a game. And for a game like TLD, that is generally better avoided if at all possible, in my view.

Therefore, I think it's unwise to dismiss discussions about 'realism' out of hand. It is valid to compare the game to the real world, up to a point, because the game is set in the real world, albeit a stylised version of it in imagined circumstances.

The argument here is that maybe the game would be improved if our characters could have the option to substitute the bedroll for something improvised on the spot for indoor locations - the same as we already can for outdoor locations. Part of the reasoning for this is that it would feel more intuitive to the scenario being depicted. I don't see anything wrong with that. There is a debate about how it would affect the overall game-balance, but there is also a valid part of the discussion to be had around whether or not it improves the 'feel' of the game in terms of immersion and perceived realism.

 Some good comments here, thanks @Pillock.

 I absolutely agree with your opening comments regarding immersion and yes there is context to consider, but isn't that somewhat of a given? One can understand the framework upon which the game is built easily and while that may provide an approximation as to how the familiar aspects may function or which ones might appear, past this rough sketch in our minds, the rest is learned through the game and taught by the game. A real-life survivalist may last 3 in-game hours, despite extensive knowledge of how to deal with these notions in reality. Knowledge about real-life survival won't help you in-game any more than the game will help you in reality because they are wholly different in all but name.

 The only thing I would add to support my previous idea is that while I agree that there is an emulation of reality to a point, that point stops early on the way to realism. That is to say, what we get is only a shadow of reality, enough to be familiar but stopping before a fair comparison is reasonable.

 I also have no fundamental problem with the idea of sleeping in currently unavailable places, as I have said many times before. My single larger objection is with the measure being used by which change might be argued, which then takes us back to the previous discussion regarding reality. It isn't enough to make claims for an idea by virtue of it being possible in reality; it's a lazy way to argue for inclusion or change and has no merit. To argue that something should be implemented by rationalizing it within the framework of the game is the only sound way to make a case. If the current sleeping mechanic were unworkable, broken or universally seen as flawed, then we have a valid argument for change. As it stands, the current mechanic is none of that, making justification for change difficult to the point that it is reduced to something that is just wanted - and only then by some - and not something needed. Then we have to consider the potential corollaries to any changes and furthermore, to consider where to stop implementing change based on desire and not need. This is again where I maintain that once that "want" bell is rung, there will be no end to the ringing and the whole thing is simply best left to the devs. Finally, creating too many concessions will diminish the game which completely relies on tension and release to sustain interest. Too many alternatives and it will became boring.

 Sorry. All of this is rehash, I know. Thanks again for your comments.

[Miniwizard]

I think often, people use the term 'realism' to refer to expecting sensible and rational results from the existing game mechnics.

Obvious examples are taking a brand or a torch out of a fire. This is a sensible expectation of a campfire and is a realistic mechanic. Throwing stones startles or distracts wildlife, again, a sensible expectation that is nicely implemented in the game. It adds a feeling or realism by providing the expected results of actions taken.

What is less sensible, is when your condition is incredibly low. So low that you can't dare to go outside to expend lots of energy sprinting around to increase your fatigue so that you can actually sleep. A very low condition does not seen to have a noticeable effect on your fatigue gain either, thus for the most part, you are unable to sleep and regain your condition but must rely on the miniscule 1% per hour by maintaing good values for warmth, thirst and hunger. Being prohibited from sleeping simply due to the fatigue value when you are in effect on the verge of death is somewhat nonsensical.

Food and hunger - are sensible and realistic values to include in the game. Eating food in games is usually the way to gain health (or at least, not lose it) and as such it is an expected behaviour. Keeping hunger at bay, and keeping yourself fed to provide enough calories to allow you to perform strenuous actions is an expected and natural concept. However, being able to consume 3kg of cooked meat, once a day, in the space of a few minutes is certainly far from realistic. It would be far more realistic to have a smaller food/calorie capacity, and need to refill it a few times during the day. (1000 rather than the current 2500)

The give and take on condition from sleep and hunger is also unrealistic and counter-intuitive. You will gain more condition overall by saving all your food to eat before bed when you have been grumbling about feeling starved and doing strenuous activity all day, You can break down tree limbs while starving hungry, yet you cannot read. Tasks that have require more calories to perform than the passive hourly calorie loss should affect condition more if performed while hungry.

These less than expected behaviours of the game mechanics make a lot of things to do with rest, sleep and condition feel unrealistic. When people say they want more realism, in essence what they mean is for the game mechanics to work in a more predictable and natural way. It's not so much a desire for the game to simulate reality, rather than to point out that the current system is (although mathematical and calculatable) far from realistic or relatable, and defies ones own intuition.

[Carbon]

 Good post @Miniwizard! I agree with your ideas regarding condition and rest; there might be an improved or revised correlation between these, such that when condition is low the player is able to sleep more to regain it. Perhaps this could accomplished with a slower replenishment of fatigue or a faster depletion but again with the corollaries, this might collide with other aspects of game play. Even with a low condition certain tasks may need to be performed which may conflict with reduced energy or it depleting quickly. Maybe, if one is warm, well-fed and watered, sleeping may offer increased or faster condition recovery, as drinking herbal tea.

 Regarding eating, yes, it's often a circular fast and famine which hardly seems normal even within the confines of context, but it really doesn't have an impact on anything. One can cancel out of eating, so a kilogram of meat can be stretched into smaller meals throughout the day allowing hunger to be kept at bay over longer periods of time. Although somewhat imprecise - counting on the player to hit the escape key at a certain time while eating - it can essentially function as a method of avoiding starvation yet never being completely full.

 But yes, the interplay and relation between sleep and condition could use some review. Good food for thought!

[cekivi]

On ‎2017‎-‎07‎-‎05 at 0:33 PM, Pillock said:

Except that the introduction of snowshelters made this argument pretty much void.

You can sleep in a snow shelter without a bedroll, and you can place them nearly anywhere you want in an outside location. And you are sleeping directly on the snow without protection. The reason this upsets the balance somewhat is that there isn't an equivalent mechanism for constructing makeshift sleeping places indoors or in caves, where it would be more sensible to do so.

My logical work around for this is you're using the cloth and sticks as a very poor makeshift ground sheet and just ignoring the fact that the snow shelter shows them being used as roofing material

The snow shelter would be very warm... but not if you're sleeping on the actual snow! Or maybe we can pretend you're harvesting boughs in the hours it takes to make one?