Faithful Cartographer Feedback

[Salty Crackers]

On ‎6‎/‎22‎/‎2017 at 11:10 AM, jms99 said:

Please change the thirst/temperature/hunger displays at the bottom of the screen back to the way they were at the top left! I miss being able to see exactly how much water or food I need, as well as what the temperature feels like. I understand the change was made to better fit the visuals of the game, but this just makes it so much more annoying and not as fun to play. That said, I really enjoy the new visuals, but this is a major problem and I think most players would agree.

+1

[Honor]

On 6/28/2017 at 0:14 PM, SquanderBot said:

I figured the icon on the map represents a spot where that items spawns. If you've collected it and it's not there any more, it will eventually spawn in that spot again. I think of the icons more as spawn points, rather than the item itself.

It seems that way but the original intent was to make sure the player didn't go somewhere with no results because they forgot. It takes a very long time for saplings to come back, if at all IIRC.

On 6/22/2017 at 11:10 AM, jms99 said:

Please change the thirst/temperature/hunger displays at the bottom of the screen back to the way they were at the top left! I miss being able to see exactly how much water or food I need, as well as what the temperature feels like. I understand the change was made to better fit the visuals of the game, but this just makes it so much more annoying and not as fun to play. That said, I really enjoy the new visuals, but this is a major problem and I think most players would agree.

I honestly feel that the symbols are not the problem, it is the fact that they have gotten rid of precise information at your fingertips and layered it behind something else. If they just displayed feels like and calories right there I think that pretty much solves it.

And cleaning up the UI to make it more put together instead of having multiple different places to look at.

[RossBondReturns]

Funnily enough I prefer not having all the information readily available. I've never been one to count my calories, nor do I want to know exactly how much water and food I need. I don't even know this in real life and often say over-eat or under-drink.

I actually prefer the pairing back of information available on the push of the tab button and greatly prefer all of the new icons.

Proud to be a card carrying member of "the minority".

[Carbon]

4 hours ago, RossBondReturns said:

Funnily enough I prefer not having all the information readily available. I've never been one to count my calories, nor do I want to know exactly how much water and food I need. I don't even know this in real life and often say over-eat or under-drink.

I actually prefer the pairing back of information available on the push of the tab button and greatly prefer all of the new icons.

Proud to be a card carrying member of "the minority".

 As am I. I like the new system aesthetically and find it sufficiently accurate and only very rarely feel the need to press "F".

 I do understand the arguments against placement however; some of the icons do seem a bit scattered for my tastes; I am not a fan of where the wind blocking and smell icons are located.

[JAFO]

2 hours ago, Carbon said:

some of the icons do seem a bit scattered for my tastes; I am not a fan of where the wind blocking and smell icons are located.

Nor am I.

[RossBondReturns]

19 hours ago, JAFO said:

Nor am I.

Or I but that is my one and only issue.

[iSUGGESTthings]

I am delighted to see that many of my little niggles have been addressed. We can finally pick up rabbits, quarter carcasses, AND there is a little blood. The placeholder dead guy has been reskinned! We can throw flares again, which look quite nice now, too. Lots of little improvements that have me looking forward to future updates.

I have to say I am disappointed that we are still unable to combine all of our kerosene - I have two half-full jerry cans and 6 bottles of fuel that I have to carry individually for some reason. Matches, sewing kits, and other small, plentiful items should just stack in one slot. I find having many of the same thing makes my inventory very cluttered. I really hope that we get improved cooking, it's really not that exciting as it is right now. More variety, and recipes. Also looking for more tasks/hobbies/ways to kill time in between chores. The pass time button is useful, but that time can feel quite empty.

I have more to explore, to check up on what's been polished up in the other regions. I am quite enjoying the cartography feature, and the improved clothing system. Good job, Hinterland, please continue to improve our sandbox experience.    

[vimrich]

More UI Feedback - there's lots to love in this game, so assume "gameplay is great except..." for all the below:

Radial HUD in general - after some issues (see below), about the only time I used it was for equipping a lantern or when there was no other way. My in game goto was "i" for inventory as it was faster and easier and most importantly, reliable. Decisions are critical and inventory always had the best info or a "base" from which to make decisions first. When I was forced to use it, I found myself saying "slow down, look carefully before you release/click to apply" as though the radial's main job in game is to be hard enough to use that if you're a bit panicked you will die before you can do what you want.

Food radial - twice ate raw uncooked meat by accident, and almost died both times. I just stopped using the Radial HUD for food or drink period. Chance of a mis-click it is just too dangerous. From the inventory screen you can pause, examine carefully for condition, weight and calories, then eat.

Medical radial - again, accidentally applied meds to the wrong condition due to the click, hold, scroll, release click flow. I get that we're supposed to learn what goes with what, but also if I know I didn't actually want to apply antiseptic to sprained wrist but do so a couple times due to the UI, this could be better.

Paper doll - this would be so much better IF you add some indicators of wear to the Paper Doll screen that you can see all at once- similar to how wetness is shown for all items at once. I kept going to this screen to see what items of clothing are most in need of repair at a glance. Realized I'd have to click each item, then noticed I can see the % condition for all items at once from inventory clothing category so once again, Inventory screen wins. 

click and hold to search - not sure what this does. If it's to represent time delay, ok, but we don't have to hold a click for other situations like fire starting and cooking. Is there ever a reason to release before the search completes?  

click and hold to open doors -  I thought sure this was put in to give wolves time to get you before the door successfully got opened. But there were a couple times at the Quonset back door where I know I barely made it to start the open door prog bar thinging and the attack seemed to stop the moment I hit click to start the open. So if the door open time delay is not for that, then why this delay/hold requirement? 

Lots of other things improved or I'm too new to them to comment.

Also, I have to say - great work on the sounds! I found I had to stop and pause and listen so much more now. Crows, pattering paws, and most of all, bear grumbles are all key to the game and not easy to hear if you don't pause to listen every so often. Very much like a good nature walk.

 

 

 

[JAFO]

9 hours ago, vimrich said:

click and hold to search - not sure what this does. If it's to represent time delay, ok, but we don't have to hold a click for other situations like fire starting and cooking. Is there ever a reason to release before the search completes?  

click and hold to open doors -  I thought sure this was put in to give wolves time to get you before the door successfully got opened. But there were a couple times at the Quonset back door where I know I barely made it to start the open door prog bar thinging and the attack seemed to stop the moment I hit click to start the open. So if the door open time delay is not for that, then why this delay/hold requirement? 

Basically, click'n'hold is a very common thing in the console world. Nondisclosure agreements being what they are, Hinterland will never admit it, but it got added (in my opinion), to keep some wonk at Sony happy, when TLD got ported to the Playstation.

Thankfully, during testing, the loud complaints from a number of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome sufferers convinced Hinterland that it needed to be an optional setting. (Naturally, they didn't see fit to disable it by default.) Go to Options>Controls, and set "Accessible interactions" to on, and you can say goodbye forever to click'n'hold..

 

[vimrich]

On 7/6/2017 at 8:06 AM, JAFO said:

Basically, click'n'hold is a very common thing in the console world. Nondisclosure agreements being what they are, Hinterland will never admit it, but it got added (in my opinion), to keep some wonk at Sony happy, when TLD got ported to the Playstation.

Thankfully, during testing, the loud complaints from a number of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome sufferers convinced Hinterland that it needed to be an optional setting. (Naturally, they didn't see fit to disable it by default.) Go to Options>Controls, and set "Accessible interactions" to on, and you can say goodbye forever to click'n'hold..

 

Nice one. Thanks for the info. 

I'm sure I've seen the Radial HUD somewhere else too. The things game companies have to do to keep up with the cool kids on the block.

 

 

[Pixelgabe]

I agree with the HUD and UI features being changed. Though I do like the look, I prefer the old one as said by most people on this thread (especially the condition). However the parts that I'm the most upset at with changes is 'take brand' was changed back to 'take torch' which the former makes more sense and you don't have an infinite supply of torches. i also don't like how 'Brandish' was turned back to 'Throw' or at least have both as an option. 

[MueckE]

On 30.6.2017 at 7:59 PM, RossBondReturns said:

Funnily enough I prefer not having all the information readily available.

Although i always was one of the players who used the exact informations, the idea behind the new UI is good and for that purpose, it is way better than the old one.

The problem here is that the new UI is better than the old one regarding immersion, but is far away from perfect. The old UI had lots of time to be tweaked and of changes based on the feedback of the community. The functionallity it is still better than the new one. Although i wouldn't change back to the old UI, it was a bad move to introduce the new one so short before the release because it is defenetly not perfect, has lots of problems - things you can only change and change over a period of time.

How you say? "Never change a running system" .... or if you do, you better come up with something better, meaning everything that made the old system so good PLUS great new things. The new UI offers great new things, but it lacks what made the old one so good.

[Salty Crackers]

Honestly, I would keep the new UI for Story Mode and use the old one for Sandbox. Immersion is more important in Story Mode, but accuracy and functionality are much more important in Sandbox.

[Thrasador]

On Monday, July 17, 2017 at 3:37 PM, Pixelgabe said:

I agree with the HUD and UI features being changed. Though I do like the look, I prefer the old one as said by most people on this thread (especially the condition). However the parts that I'm the most upset at with changes is 'take brand' was changed back to 'take torch' which the former makes more sense and you don't have an infinite supply of torches. i also don't like how 'Brandish' was turned back to 'Throw' or at least have both as an option. 

Brandishing makes much more sense for frightening a wolf. They really should have both options. They probably switched it to throwing simply to make things harder, because if you have to throw you can miss. You can overshoot the wolf and now you have to get another torch or flare and try again.

With brandishing you could also try to keep multiple wolves at bay. With throwing you need multiple torches or flares for multiple wolves coming from different directions. I hate it!

[SquanderBot]

On 7/2/2017 at 0:55 AM, iSUGGESTthings said:

still unable to combine all of our kerosene - I have two half-full jerry cans and 6 bottles of fuel that I have to carry individually for some reason.

yeah I agree with this... also surprised that when you Harvest a lantern, it does not give you the kerosene that was in it.

[SquanderBot]

On 7/19/2017 at 8:19 PM, Thrasador said:

Brandishing makes much more sense for frightening a wolf. They really should have both options. They probably switched it to throwing simply to make things harder, because if you have to throw you can miss. You can overshoot the wolf and now you have to get another torch or flare and try again.

With brandishing you could also try to keep multiple wolves at bay. With throwing you need multiple torches or flares for multiple wolves coming from different directions. I hate it!

With torches I was thinking the idea was to throw the torch on the ground between you and the wolf so that a wolf coming straight towards you would have to step on the torch and that would scare it away.

[Piers Arkan]

9 minutes ago, SquanderBot said:

yeah I agree with this... also surprised that when you Harvest a lantern, it does not give you the kerosene that was in it.

While it may not be that big of a complaint on my end, as it makes some sense, I lost ALL of my kerosene from my lamp when a wolf attacked me, and that kinda sucked. 

[Thrasador]

6 minutes ago, SquanderBot said:

With torches I was thinking the idea was to throw the torch on the ground between you and the wolf so that a wolf coming straight towards you would have to step on the torch and that would scare it away.

I thought that's how it works too....I just haven't seen it work much...

[Thrasador]

12 minutes ago, SquanderBot said:

yeah I agree with this... also surprised that when you Harvest a lantern, it does not give you the kerosene that was in it.

Are you sure? I'm pretty sure you get kerosene when you harvest a lamp....it's not in a jerry can. It's in a blue and black lantern oil canister like you get from cooking fish....

[SquanderBot]

3 minutes ago, Thrasador said:

I thought that's how it works too....I just haven't seen it work much...

ha, gotcha.

[NardoLoopa]

New player, here.  I have no idea what the old interface was like to play with -- other than seeing a few Let's Plays online.

- I like the approximate temp UI from the hud.  Sure, the gamer in me would rather optimize on numbers, but I feel that's antithetical to the theme of TLD.  It's a good simplification.  If I'm out in the winter cold in Chicago, I could only guess within 10 degrees Fahrenheit what the temp is.  And since you don't penalize us for being over-dressed (thank goodness), I'm fine with "cold", "really cold" "f'n cold" icons.

- I don't really like the aim of the bow.  The hand is in the way.  I realize might be to keep aiming short, or something, but this neither hews to an actual archery experience, nor to most games I've ever played.  Yes, it is similar to what happens in long-range shots (where the hand obscures your target), but for short range, it is a bit over-done.  It might be because you rise from a crouch to aim, so your target is often lower (therefore obscured) once you stand.  I found the experience pretty jarring.

- I love (LOVE) that the map does not include a "you are here" icon.  Also, that you have no compass.  These are the single most immersive small details that really differentiate TLD for me.  Being lost causes a bit of panic -- especially when dogged by a wolf.  I feel this is something not offered by many survival game, yet critical to the experience.

- Permadeath : yes, I know this is probably something in TLD from the beginning (and not new to FC), but I think it's also essential.  I'd only like to see the save-game mechanic changed so it is continuous: no real chance of quitting in the middle and losing "progress".  I'd also like to be able to quit anytime and pick up where I left off -- though that is often a survival meta-problem for me; "Now, what was I doing?  Where am I?"

Awesome game.

 

[Thrasador]

33 minutes ago, NardoLoopa said:

 I'd only like to see the save-game mechanic changed so it is continuous: no real chance of quitting in the middle and losing "progress".  I'd also like to be able to quit anytime and pick up where I left off -- though that is often a survival meta-problem for me; "Now, what was I doing?  Where am I?"

Awesome game.

 

Unfortunately you are right there is currently no way to just save while quitting. That being said, I guess you do save when "passing time." So even if there is no shelter close by to enter or a bed, you could try to pass an hour of time in a safe place like a car or cave and then quit.

As far as remembering exactly where you are and what you wanted to do next, there is a way to record notes in the journal in the game. When you are looking in the journal at the list of daily summaries there is a note tab on the right side of the journal. You can click that and type in some quick notes about where you are, and what you wanted to do next....or anything else important.....like "You shot a wolf outside, it died next to the silo...don't forget to go harvest it."

 

[SquanderBot]

4 hours ago, Thrasador said:

Are you sure? I'm pretty sure you get kerosene when you harvest a lamp....it's not in a jerry can. It's in a blue and black lantern oil canister like you get from cooking fish....

Hm, I'd have to say no, I'm not totally sure because I've never actually harvested one -- I've been reluctant to because I've looked at the Actions/Harvest window specifically looking for the oil but I only recall seeing scrap metal listed as a result. I should check this out.

[SquanderBot]

1 hour ago, NardoLoopa said:

"Now, what was I doing?  Where am I?"

Ha, I've done this so often... paused the game to do something else, come back having completely lost my train of thought and don't know where I was going or what I was doing.

[Thrasador]

1 hour ago, SquanderBot said:

Ha, I've done this so often... paused the game to do something else, come back having completely lost my train of thought and don't know where I was going or what I was doing.

Fortunately I don't typically have that problem. However if I quit playing for like a year or something, I probably would have no clue what I was up to unless I wrote some notes.

After a year though, with all the changes and updates there typically are, I would most likely be better off starting a new run....