10 Suggestions

[Wish]

Thank you for asking our opinion on ideas for new features. Below is a small list of tweaks that would make the game more enjoyable or immersive.

Background: I am probably what you would call an "average" player - I've only played on Voyager mode, appreciate the balance between survival and exploration, and have been to many, but not all, map locations.

In no particular order:

1. Slightly increased illumination inside buildings at night. Rationale: It is frustrating not being able to find your bed in the dark when you know it is only a few feet away from you. This pulls me out of the game world, as I am sure my character could fumble his/her way around the room. Side note: Candles, perhaps?

2. Have wood stove fire illumination _slightly_ increase the ambient light in the room. Rationale: A fire in the stove illuminates the room less than lighting a single match, which doesn't feel right (though the glowing orange lines on the floor are gorgeous).

3.  Equalize the harvesting indicator sensitivity when wielding either the rifle or bow. Rationale: Harvesting plants is more difficult while wielding a bow than the rifle. There's something about the harvesting indicator that just isn't as responsive. It seems like this should behave equally when weapons are wielded. 

4. Be able to stack/pile the same type of objects individually. Rationale: Dropping piles of the same item on the floor is a useful organizing technique (I prefer to see everything rather than store items in house containers), as all the items are consolidated in one place. However, one cannot move an individual item and place it on the pile, as that item requires its own free space. That makes organizing more difficult.

5. Add a "drop all of this type of item" button to the inventory menu (even if they are a different weight). Rationale: When dropping items into piles for organization (I often use the "weight" category"), there is no way to drop all of the same type of item at once. While you can with, say, sticks, by dropping all or indicate the number of sticks you wish to drop, the same does not appear to be true with items of the same type and different weight. Once an item is dropped (guts, for example), then the menu adjusts to the new weight hierarchy, and you have to go searching for the other guts you were trying to drop. That isn't enjoyable or immersive. I'm just trying to drop all of the same types of items in a pile, even though they have different weights.

6. Be able to place fuel directly into the fire instead of having to go through a menu. Rationale: If we can place a log on the floor, it is logical (game wise) that we could place it in the fire (or a container).

7. Be able to place a storm lantern to a new location without having to equip it first. Rationale: Everything else seems to be able to be placed around a room, but that option isn't available when hovering over the lantern, which is confusing.

8. Align animal-time and player-time. What I mean is, nearby animals seem to be in the same exact location even though I slept an hour. Rationale: the game world currently feels like it has temporal dissonance in relation to animals actions and player actions.

9. Minimize frostbite indicators (by removing the red area of the status bar and the red, "-10%" when you check your health status). Just make the health bar shorter after informing the player their character has frostbite, and make a subtle reminder of frostbite on the Afflictions page (not a glaring one). Rationale: It is demoralizing to be constantly reminded that you made a mistake. I can't think of another indicator that perpetually reminds you of making an game-play error. Frostbite is, of course, permanent, so I understand the rationale, but the bright red indicators make me think EMERGENCY - TAKE ACTION, but there is nothing to be done about it except feel bad. A more subtle reminder would be welcome. 

10. Add variation to animal coloring. Rationale: While I'm sure many would like to see other animals, such as elk, moose, squirrels, et cetera (myself included), it would be enjoyable and more immersive to see deer and rabbits with different coloring; only though, if it doesn't conflict with the aesthetic philosophy of the game, as the "sameness" in the coloring of things creates a somewhat dreamlike quality (the consistent coloring of most of the trees, for example).

Please forgive me if there are other posts indicating that some of these adjustments are on the way, or if my ignorance of the game make any of these suggestions moot. 

Thank you for considering.

-W

 

 

 

[Miniwizard]

1. I totally agree, interiors at night are now way too dark, it is frustrating to spin the mouse around trying to find even a window, for orientation and a sense of direction. You don't even know if you are looking upwards at the ceiling or downwards at the floor. It can take several minutes of sheer frustration trying to navigate a few meters, or find your bed again.

2. Not so fussed, point 1 would resolve any issue here. I find the current ambient glow very beautiful.

3. Yes, but now try harvesting anything with a stone equipped. It is even harder as the smallest mis-click will throw the stone instead. The rifle and the bow at least require you to 'aim' first.

4. True, but that would require quite large changes to the game mechanics. Personally, I'm not fussed about 'seeing' all the items and being able to place craftable containers in desired locations would be simpler to implement.

5. If you are sorting your inventory by weight, then yes, it tends to jump around after dropping an item. However, at the bottom of that screen, you can already also choose to 'sort by' condition or type. Choosing type will solve your problem here.

6. BOOM! - I think it's safe to say this is not a great thing to do... sure, use it on the tinder to aid fire starting, but don't pour it on naked flames!

7. Yes, the storm lantern is 'awkward' in this regard. It does stick out compared to the functionality of moving all other items. Not a big issue, but would be nice to have uniformity.

8. This seems to be a bit hit and miss. Sometimes the animals seems to have moved off and done things, sometimes they don't. Take for instance harvesting a branch for 10minutes, with a wolf in view. It doesn't hardly move an inch from start to finish 10 minutes later. Other times, the passing of time does seem to have affected all local wildlife and their positions.

9. Can't comment. I've not yet suffered from frostbite.

10. Interesting. Would probably end up making things a lot harder, as they would be far less obvious and distinguishable from a distance.

[JoE Smash]

I agree with your suggestions. Most of the issues have already aggravated me to varying degrees.

[Wish]

Two additional suggestions:

1. Be able to light a Storm Lantern without picking it up. Who doesn't want to simply "turn the light on" when coming home?

2. Be able to place a new fire on top of an old one (have it turn green). Yes, you can just click on the old fire, but you might not realize that at first and not being able to place a fire on top of an old fire--when you are able to light the old fire--seems inconsistent.

Thank you. 

The Long Dark is a wonderful experience. Thank you for all the hard work you are putting into it. 

 

[Thrasador]

The only one on the list that I care deeply about is a little more starlight, moon light, aurora light through the windows at night. As others have mentioned previously the degree of pitch blackness is excessive. You can't really navigate any building currently in the dark. So if your bed is on the second floor....good luck with that. If it was real life and truly that dark, we could still feel objects with our hands and maybe feel our way around to the stairs and the bed. Can't really do that in game....

They are working on lantern placing I think already.

I'd like to add a request though:

Using non-potable water to brew coffee, teas, mushrooms, etc. The act of brewing hot drinks typically involves boiling the water first. It's very frustrating that I have to melt and then boil a batch of water, only to have to then boil it again to brew a drink immediately after....

[Wish]

Oh! Here's another one:

Be able to break down beds for reclaimed wood and cloth.

Sometimes there's that perfect little cabin that feels too cramped with more than one bed. Let us break the beds!

 

[Mroz4k]

Breakable beds were not included for balancing reasons - very easy to get a huge amount of cloth anywhere this way, just break all the beds everywhere where you know you won't need a bed, or simply everywhere except for your base and carry a bedroll with you. So no thanks.
For "placing campfires over each other" - this is how it used to be in the past. You were able to place campfires over each other, but you could not re-light them. This made it very messy because once you placed a significant amount of campfires down it had an effect on the game performance. Why would you even want to do that anyway? It would just make clicking on individual campfires more difficult. This doesn't seem like a very good idea.

As for the original suggestions, I know it's a bit outdated to respond to, still here goes:
1. Would like that. If not for anything else than for the video quality of the TLD, if you see vid of the game and its just pitch darkness it does not make for a very entertaining vid. But yea, little compensation for the fact we can't "touch & feel" our way to the bed would be nice.

2. This is a moot point because that widely depends on how the wood stove looks. We have three on our cottage in Slovakia - one has big sides and that one can actually somewhat illuminate the room, but the rest of them have very small air vents and a single match would probably do better than the lit-up stove. But the general indoor light would help with that.

On the contrary, I get why they did it - they want to force the player to use up fuel to walk around the house in the midnight. Just to add a small addition to the merciless nature of the survival aspect in the game.

3. Solution - put your weapons away. This is unnecessary, and any change to this would result in changes for how the weapons act, and that's not a good thing. I would rather the weapon behavior stayed the same. Just don't be lazy to put them away, it actually makes sense if you want to do something with your hands, you need to put your weapons down to do it.

4. Organizing should take some time. This is unnecessary because all you need to do is walk over the original pile and drop the desired item and it will be added.

5. Using Sort by weight selection will probably become your new best friend now, huh?

6. This would be fricking cool, but ultimately not necessary. Still I agree, however insignificant this may seem, it would greatly improve the immersion compared to the current campfire interface, being able to put the wood directly into the flames. Which is what I think is something that would make a lot of oldtimers very happy to see it, at least for a while before they get used to it.

Note @Miniwizard ,   Wish meant more fuel as in "firewood", not fuel as in "gasoline"

7. Are you sure this is an issue? I am somewhat sure you can take it by right clicking and move it around, if not, then I believe this is a glitch worth reporting. I haven't tried it at the moment but I move lanterns around all the time without picking them up. Just right click and then left click when you moved it somewhere you like.

I would like to see a "space" option for lantern to be lit up without being picked up from the ground. That would be great. Just imagine picking it up with left click, a window opens, click "space" for "turn on/off", it turns on, then right click to put it back down.

8. This is just flat out wrong, it seems you are just unlucky. Changes in the day do indeed move the wildlife. The only difference is if they are in your eyesight, then they might not move around but can be seen in the background, stopped. But if you go indoors and wait for one or two hours, the animals should move on. However, apparently the wolves now inspect noise, so opening doors will now probably trigger their inspection.

9. I agree. The issue here is because it is a permanent "affliction" - the afflictions tend to display one´s HUD bar constantly until they are removed. That is fine and all, but frostbite cannot be removed. So once you get it (assuming it hasn't changed since the Frostbite got added, because I tested it back then) you will always see your condition bar, and there will be red -10, -20 etc percent next to it. A less aggressive reminder would be appreciated. 

10. This would be a pretty cool addition to the variety in the game, would likely increase immersion. Would also make the game a bit more challenging because it would be more difficult to recognize what that spot in the distance is - if it's a wolf or a certain skin of a deer. I like it. Certain animals already have several models, actually - Fluffy from the Dam looks different to regular wolves (at least as far as I have heard) and the Old Bear from challenge does as well, but it would be nice if these varieties were more common in the sandbox.

[Wish]

Thanks for the responses the suggestions - much appreciated. It's interesting reading different perspectives, and some have even made me change my mind on a few things.

 

[ChapnCrunch]

On 7/16/2017 at 0:57 PM, Thrasador said:

Using non-potable water to brew coffee, teas, mushrooms, etc. The act of brewing hot drinks typically involves boiling the water first. It's very frustrating that I have to melt and then boil a batch of water, only to have to then boil it again to brew a drink immediately after....

Oh man, I have had this thought so many times. Yes! It's cool how the latest update makes you prepare the rose hips or mushrooms. That seems to take care of the intermediate step. Why have yet another one?