The Long Dark

[fuzz]

Since posting here last year, I've played with randomized spawn on Stalker only and clocked 168h. Had fun, loved exploring all the regions. Died a few times due to lack of map knowledge and/or not respecting the weather system and pushing too far out into the unknown. Hated the designed for consoles UI, wish we could mod back the earlier version they had implemented, that I saw in old videos. Currently on a 260 day run that will soon run out of content, got one more region left. Not bad but again I haven't been following the game over the years and wasn't playing earlier builds. Whole thing must be frustrating and laughable at this point for folks that did.

With base customization update still not in sight

Is that a planned feature?

Yeah.

(...) Survive in relative comfort through a series of features and items that allow you to organize, optimize, and decorate your favourite interiors. (...)

sauce: https://www.thelongdark.com/expansion/

 

[Iucounu]

Since posting here last year, I've played with randomized spawn on Stalker only and clocked 168h. Had fun, loved exploring all the regions. Died a few times due to lack of map knowledge and/or not respecting the weather system and pushing too far out into the unknown. Hated the designed for consoles UI, wish we could mod back the earlier version they had implemented, that I saw in old videos. Currently on a 260 day run that will soon run out of content, got one more region left.

I'm playing Interloper, currently past 300 days mostly in Mystery Lake. With the free ice fishing holes it's become too simple, not even Scurvy is a major problem. I just pass time until midday (when it's warmer outside), cut a hole, go back inside the house and warm up, go back out and wait for fish to catch (which at the same time prevents Cabin fever), rinse and repeat. A bit repetitive in the long run, except when I need to go and fetch more metal and cloth to make new tipups.

Not bad but again I haven't been following the game over the years and wasn't playing earlier builds. Whole thing must be frustrating and laughable at this point for folks that did.

I guess that's always the case with forced updates, there will always be some changes old players don't like.

With base customization update still not in sight

Is that a planned feature?

Yeah.

(...) Survive in relative comfort through a series of features and items that allow you to organize, optimize, and decorate your favourite interiors. (...)

sauce: https://www.thelongdark.com/expansion/

Seems to be part of the Tales... DLC. A trader is planned as well: "A source of rare goods and useful information, for a price."

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Timberwolf Mountain hut isn't that bad anyway, with some warm clothes you can stay warm with no issues.

 

[Iucounu]

Although animals usually spawn in predefined areas, sometimes places are completely unexpected.

For example, I had ended Passing Time on the porch outside Mystery Lake Camp Office only to see a wolf right outside. I don't think I've ever seen one there in 100-200 days. I didn't carry anything smelly that could have attracted it either. Surprises like these sure keep you on your toes every moment.

Another time when I exited the Camp Office I saw a deer grazing on the very Lake Trail. Apparently it had spawned right there, it wasn't fleeing from anything.

Maybe it's just bugs, I once saw a deer on a cliff in The Ravine that it couldn't get down from, and where I couldn't climb up to harvest it after killing it. Another time a Ravine deer had spawned around a tree, which made it easy to kill since it couldn't flee.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Hinterland finally broke the silence - by banning any and all dissenters and imposing strict and new guidelines on all discussions. The Steam forums looked like ResetEra for a time.

Someone at Hinterland has Issues.

 

[Iucounu]

Hinterland finally broke the silence - by banning any and all dissenters and imposing strict and new guidelines on all discussions. The Steam forums looked like ResetEra for a time.

Someone at Hinterland has Issues.

What is the cause of all the drama, lack of communication?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Lack of communication, unkempt promises of game updates, s-l-o-w-a-s-s d-e-v-e-l-o-p-m-e-n-t t-i-m-e, and then most recently the draconic censorship and somehow trying to blame the fans for things.

 

[jackofshadows]

and somehow trying to blame the fans for things.

Could you

on this please? What a bunch of troglodytes. I bet that's about not going with their worst of all possible option for further game's monetization model.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

and somehow trying to blame the fans for things.

Could you

on this please? What a bunch of troglodytes. I bet that's about not going with their worst of all possible option for further game's monetization model.

I'm referring to how Hinterland whined about how the state of communication on their official forums was due to all the lurkers, who were refusing to take part in the discussion.

Regrettably I get where the lurkers are coming from, when the 'welcome' they get is either silence or some kind of ban.

This seems to be a very recent development though, and I hope it goes away as quickly as it appeared.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

We FINALLY get a developer diary from Hinterland - and it's a juicy one.

The game will be getting its fifth (out of six) updates late next month, and it'll add:

• The cougar. Instead of being wildlife which only responds to you if you get too close to it, the cougar will actively hunt you down.
• A new mountain pass-region. Lots of verticality (where's Garrett when you need him?) and a weather station.
• Misery Mode, either a new difficulty level or an option to add to the pre-existing ones. Think Interloper with six afflictions dumped on top of everything.
• The final part of the narrative tale told by the DLC. They promise that the end reward will be worth it this time!
• The traveling merchant and the customizable home base have been pushed to the sixth and final update.

The cougar immediately presents a problem, because its activity is area-based: Stay too long in one region, and you get cougars. Stay on the move, and they stay away. Great. It's Cabin Fever on steroids, but at least this time you can go on the offensive and try to drive them away by wrecking their lair. Hinterland can easily screw this one up, which is why they're making it optional in every run, even pre-existing ones.

The description of the new mountain pass-region makes me believe that the regions added in the DLC will be used as the setting of Episode 5 of Wintermute, most notably the airfield and the weather station.

They claim runs of Misery Mode will only last a few weeks at the most, compared to how Interloper-experts are pulling off runs that are hundreds of days long.

As for their extended silence? No explanation except that porting the game to the Switch is gonna take longer than needed.

Episode 5 will not be discussed further until later this year.

 

[Iucounu]

[*]Misery Mode, either a new difficulty level or an option to add to the pre-existing ones. Think Interloper with six afflictions dumped on top of everything.
[/LIST]

Wonder if the new afflictions are avoidable or inevitable? The diary also mentions a new Cheat Death System, where your new character can retrieve some of the things the previous one was carrying. Both these new features seem to be free, while the rest are part of the Tales DLC. So no cougar for me unless I get the DLC.

The cougar immediately presents a problem, because its activity is area-based: Stay too long in one region, and you get cougars. Stay on the move, and they stay away. Great. It's Cabin Fever on steroids

Yeah Scurvy already prevents you from staying too long in regions without fish, with cougars it seems you must also rotate between different fishing regions. But it also seems you can alert the cougar by entering its territory, so maybe too much travelling is not a good idea either...

The description of the new mountain pass-region makes me believe that the regions added in the DLC will be used as the setting of Episode 5 of Wintermute, most notably the airfield and the weather station.

You mean those regions will be used both in Tales and Wintermute?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The description of the new mountain pass-region makes me believe that the regions added in the DLC will be used as the setting of Episode 5 of Wintermute, most notably the airfield and the weather station.

You mean those regions will be used both in Tales and Wintermute?

That's what I think, yes.

From what I can tell, Mystery Lake was not built around Wintermute, but Mountain Town, Pleasant Valley and Blackrock Mountain definetely were. (Not sure about Forlorn Muskeg or Broken Railroad.) And considering what we know of the story of Wintermute, it is logical that an airfield enters the picture at some point, and Perserverance Mills has a laboratory/weather station that's shielded from electrical disturbances, meaning it's the last bastion of modernity on Great Bear (if not further).

It'll be weird for those who don't own Tales to play Wintermute and see all those maps, and then booting up Survival Mode and finding some of the maps behind a paywall.

The only question I have right now, is where is the new Mountain Pass-region gonna be?

 

[Iucounu]

The new Cheat Death mechanic doesn't seem to make the game easier. If you die due to a silly mistake it gives you another chance, but if you're not good enough at the game the added penalties mean you'll quickly get killed again.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

They removed the Cougar from the game.

The lead developer admitted that he had a specific vision for how the Cougar was to work, but that idea doesn't mesh with the game.

So while they retool and rework it, it's gone. Hopefully it'll return.

Scurvy is still a major discussion point, it needlessly forces players into certain behaviors.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I've returned to The Long Dark, primarily for two reasons.

The first one was that I wanted to learn more about the Cougar, and why it was removed.

It didn't take me long to find out: It's basically the Darkwalker in the normal game.

For those not in the know, the Darkwalker is an optional challenge where the player is pitted against a supernatural hunter. The only thing that matters is the distance between the Darkwalker and the player, and the hunter is constantly trying to get closer. The closer the hunter is, the louder the ominous music plays.

But in truth the Darkwalker isn't there at all, it's just a value that the game keeps track of, applying afflictions and playing sounds the closer the value is to the player. The Darkwalker only becomes visible when it's killing the player. Otherwise it's not there, it doesn't make tracks, ignores terrain and can't be attacked, delayed or distracted. The only way to survive is to keep moving.

The Cougar functions in almost the same manner. Depending on difficulty level, a timer starts counting down for how long the player is spending in a region. On Pilgrim this is a very gracious 70 days, but the number drops sharply on higher difficulty levels, until it's only ten days on Misery. Once this timer is close to running out the player is warned that a Cougar arrival is imminent.

When a Couger 'moves in' into a region, it is an invisible entity that is constantly trying to reach the player. Once it does, a struggle-attack takes place, and if fought off the Cougar only remains in place long enough for the player to (maybe) get off a single shot, then it disappears into the ether and becomes just a value in the game's memory. Repeat until the Cougar is killed, its lair destroyed or the player leaves the region long enough for the Cougar to lose interest.

Darkwalker behavior makes sense for a supernatural entity, but not for an animal predator.

I doubt we'll be seeing the Cougar again anytime soon. They'll have to retool it from the ground up, to make it an actual entity in the game world that can be encountered.

The second reason was that I wanted to try out some mods.

This was a stranger process than I anticipated, as it requires a multi-game mod management utility called LemonLoader. Once installed however it integrates itself almost seamlessly into the game, becoming a short launch window visible while the game is loading, and then a simple in-game choice on the Options-menu. After that it's just a case of dropping the mod-files into the correct folder, and LemonLoader does the rest.

And there are a LOT of mods available for this game. The most obvious ones are the tweaking-mods, allowing players to fiddle with in-game mechanics. For my first tryout I installed mods that allow me to control item decay, allow me to jump, and the most popular option-tweaking mod. So far it's all working good, but I'm seeing bigger, bolder mods that I may try installing in the future. There are mods for almost every gameplay aspect imaginable. One that allows players to place items in the world, one that enhances weapons, light sources, the sun, the northern lights, player speed (one mod is simply called 'Sonic', gotta go fast!) and so on. There's even an ambitious group working on a whole new region as a mod!

Technically the jumping and item decay-mods are cheat mods, but considering both are counters to boneheaded game design decisions I really don't care what anyone thinks. Jumping will probably break the game something fierce (and that will be fun to see) but the only aspect of the item decay mod I'm using is to freeze decay in place until I pick up the item. That way everything will still be there when I come collect it, and I don't have to madly rush all over the map in the early game to grab everything before it decays to nothingness.

Fun times ahead. Experiment #1: Setting the jump-settings to maximum, then fly off the summit of Timberwolf mountain. How far will I go?

 

[Iucounu]

Darkwalker behavior makes sense for a supernatural entity, but not for an animal predator.

Do real cougars stalk their prey openly, like the wolves and bears in the game? Because if they rather ambush you, I actually think the current mechanic is more realistic (you're not supposed to notice them before they jump at you). The problem is more that this mechanic has already been used for the Darkwalker. But I haven't played with any of these myself.

I suppose many players want to be able to hunt the cougar themselves, but I'm not sure how doable that would be if the cougar is hunting the player at the same time...

Technically the jumping and item decay-mods are cheat mods, but considering both are counters to boneheaded game design decisions I really don't care what anyone thinks. Jumping will probably break the game something fierce (and that will be fun to see)

What's the practical use for jumping? It may not be something you'd do even in real life while carrying heavy loads.

but the only aspect of the item decay mod I'm using is to freeze decay in place until I pick up the item. That way everything will still be there when I come collect it, and I don't have to madly rush all over the map in the early game to grab everything before it decays to nothingness.

True, making ruined things just disappear is silly.

Personally I'd like ruined food to stay dangerous to eat even at Cooking 5, if it's edible it can't be ruined by definition. Maybe also a mod that makes predators smell food that you've dropped on the ground (without using the baiting key), but perhaps that would break too many things.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Darkwalker behavior makes sense for a supernatural entity, but not for an animal predator.

Do real cougars stalk their prey openly, like the wolves and bears in the game?

No. That's the thing, they technically don't exist in-game until they attack the player and force a Struggle.

I suppose many players want to be able to hunt the cougar themselves

Because of the above, that's not possible. The best players can do is to find the Cougar's lair (which spawns somewhere on the map) and destroy that (using several noisemakers). That removes the Cougar alert and gives the player a considerable reprieve.

What's the practical use for jumping? It may not be something you'd do even in real life while carrying heavy loads.

Traversing terrain. You can use jumping to reach places you're not supposed to, or make nice shortcuts.

And the jump-mod is balanced in the way that it both costs stamina to jump, and that you can't jump if overburdened.

 

[Iucounu]

Darkwalker behavior makes sense for a supernatural entity, but not for an animal predator.

Do real cougars stalk their prey openly, like the wolves and bears in the game?

No. That's the thing, they technically don't exist in-game until they attack the player and force a Struggle.

No I meant cougars in real life. I imagine they would ambush prey animals, but if they view humans as intruders rather than as prey maybe they'll threaten before attacking?

 

[Unkillable Cat]

My bad, missed a single word there.

I don't have cougars in my part of the world, but from what I've heard people tend to die from them now and again.

Oversized hungry murderfloofs are quite dangerous.

 

[Iucounu]

Seems they're normally not territorial towards humans, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cougar

"In a 10-year study in New Mexico of wild cougars who were not habituated to humans, the animals did not exhibit threatening behavior to researchers who approached closely"​

But the (now removed) game mechanic does seem to fit their normal hunting behavior:

"Although capable of sprinting, the cougar is typically an ambush predator. It stalks through brush and trees, across ledges, or other covered spots, before delivering a powerful leap onto the back of its prey"​

​

But Wikipedia also says they may stalk humans:

"Preceding attacks on humans, cougars display aberrant behavior, such as activity during daylight hours, a lack of fear of humans, and stalking humans."​

...which sounds like you might spot it from a distance days or weeks before it ambushes you, or that it will stalk you like an in-game wolf as part of the attack?

Of course if it stalked you in the game it would become much easier to kill with bow or gun. Maybe the devs wanted to prevent players from killing it that easily.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Unfortunately they are making increasingly weird design choices. Survival mode at this point is quite solid and obviously what it needs the most is base building to add a cherry on top.

And don't get me started about story mode which at this point I think I've restarted 3 times because episodes come out so rarely I don't remember what the fuck the story is even about.

 

[jackofshadows]

The story mode is complete shit anyways.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Been playing around with the mods, started a Voyageur Survival-game. Ended up in Mountain Town, underneath the bridge in the upper-right corner of the map. (Yes, the one with the bear.) Clear skies, but feckin' freezing, heat dropping fast. Fortunately bear was not present so I ran to loot the cars on the bridge, and scored a beanie and a parka. Heat still dropping, I pondered my next move. Should I run across half the map, towards the church and hope I make it in time? Or maybe... yes! I turned the opposite direction and made my way through the winding canyon to a cave, which exits close to the crashed plane which serves as the beginning of Wintermute. I was slowly warming up in the cave, but had to use my single flare to light the way.

I was halfway through the cave when I remembered that one of the nine prepper bunkers would be waiting on the other side, and would most likely be empty (nine bunkers in total, only three of them have anything in them). "Well, at least I can warm up in there" I thought as I exited the cave and found the hatch.

The bunker was chock-full of stuff! Paydirt! When I finally emerged from the bunker I was fully-clothed and burdened with loot. I spent the next few days exploring all of the Mountain Town-map, finding a revolver, fixing the radio transmitter, finding the memento note+key for the cache back where I started, but somehow forgot to take the key with me, so I had to go all the way back for that. Fun times.

But then it was time to leave, and I did a tally of my stuff. I had over 100 kg of items I wanted to ferry over to Mystery Lake, but as people know getting into/out of Milton requires both climbing down and up a rope. Such a task would take about four trips, or days of in-game time.

But then I remembered that I'm playing a modded version, and I looked over the settings.

Here's what I changed using the mods:

# Items do not decay until I pick them up, and after that they decay at half the usual rate. (I'm doing this playthrough at my pace, and I want to take it easy, at least for starters.)
# Flashlights start with a random battery charge. (I picked this one just to add some variety to the game, except then I realized that flashlights automatically recharge during Aurora-events, so this gets annulled by the game itself.)
# I could pick the color of the flashlight's light, so I picked yellow, because all the old flashlights had a yellowish tint to their light. The Miner's Light (a unique item) I kept white so that it would retain its 'special' status.
# Gas mask filters last 60 seconds instead of 45. I hear players burn through the filters pretty quickly in the Zone of Contamination, I figured this would be an offset to that.
# The ability to jump. This is not as powerful as people think, as even on maximum settings the jump is short, but covers about a large crate's worth of vertical height. No one will be doing any platforming with this, but at least they can climb slopes via constant jumping.

There are tons of other options to fiddle with, but one of them was now catching my eye. "Adjust maximum carry weight." I thought about this; increasing it just while I'm ferrying the stuff over would be nice... how high can I adjust it?

...120 kg?!?

To be able to do it all in one go? Do I dare to dream cheat?

So I did, just to speed things up a bit and try things out. Even so it was tight, because once the fatigue-meter goes below 50% the max carry capacity starts dropping, and if the Sprain Risk sets in you can't climb ropes anymore. I literally had seconds to spare when I started climbing the rope out of Mountain Town and towards the Mystery Lake-cave before said affliction set in.

One very weary survivor, somehow carrying more than twice his own physical weight, crashed onto the Trapper's bed at Mystery Lake and slept like a log for two days. Then he got up and trekked across Mystery Lake over to the Carter Dam, where he spent an entire day just searching the place and sorting everything into place. Carter Dam is an excellent place to set up your main base, especially in the early game. Once everything was sorted I lowered the carry weight back to normal levels and got myself ready to explore/loot Mystery Lake. I also found Vaughn's Rifle, so at least I'm ready to face the world.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Making progress, getting ready to test out the new features I've missed on.

Almost killed myself by eating bad food and got Food Poisoning, and realizing that all the antibiotics I'd gathered were in another region. So I had to trek through three different maps (and a cave), at night, during a blizzard, just to take a couple of pills. Down to 40% condition after that, and still needed to rest for 10 hours. Harrowing, but I pulled through.

Two new 'natural' resources that can now be harvested (since my last proper playthrough) are acorns and burdock roots. Burdock roots actually take some time to harvest and aren't that common, while acorns are more dependant upon identifying the proper trees visually. At this point I recalled that some new food recipes were added, so I read up on those.

New food items were added to the game to accommodate these new recipes, and most of them aren't edible in and of themselves (like flour, salt and cooking oil) while others only need cooking. Many Codexers will be pleased to know that the potato is now an included food item, complete with potato sacks and vegetable shelves that are often full of the things. (Need to be cooked first though.) Two things caught my attention with these new additions: The Special Recipes, and the new Afflictions.

The Special Recipes are notes that can be found in certain locations that unlock new and often improved variations on pre-existing recipes. One major downside though, is that they require the Cooking Skill to be at least 4 for some, and 5 for most of them. This absolutely cements the Cooking-skill as The No. 1 Skill in TLD to level up. It's just too good.

The new Afflictions are a mixed bag, but overall on the positive. They can only be gained by eating recipe foods, but the positive ones are extremely valuable: "Nourished" temporarily adds +10% to your maximum Condition, meaning that paired with "Well Fed" you can have a +15% Condition-bonus going. Useful if you know you're about to get into hazardous things. "Unburdened" adds +3 kg to your max carry weight while active, which can be a godsend at times. One of the true Afflictions is losing ~15% Fatigue while eating a meal, which leads to a new problem: Certain recipes become more valuable than others. Combine this with the fact that the new recipes often call for ingredients that are unprocessed (i.e. you don't need to cook the meat for some of the recipes) and the result is a resource war of sorts where certain food stuffs/ingredients get prioritized for these recipes, instead of standard consumption. Either Hinterland didn't quite think this one through, or committed some major Overthinking here, unsure what the call is.

Two other things remain for me to try out: The travois, and the 'Cheat Death'-system. The travois is straightforward, it's a drag-along sled of sorts which allows the player to carry an additional 30kg of stuff, but it has travel restrictions on it. It can't traverse certain angles and widths of terrain, and the turning rate is altered as well. This obviously eliminates certain travel paths through the game, but which ones is up to me to discover.

Meanwhile the 'Cheat Death'-system allows players to evade a game-crippling death in exchange for some further restrictions. Not sure what to make of this one, as I've yet to experience it.

Finally, I turned off Scurvy for this playthrough. It's a neat system that I think should be included, but they've yet to suss out the numbers right to make it fair.

More later.

 

[luj1]

Ken Rolston is on the design team, I wonder if this game is good