The Long Dark: Late Game? | Sandbox Discussion 

I'm on board for mega blizzards and a further drop in overall temp, possibly even a drop indoors not a massive drop just say 1C for every 100 days. I think a light cycle change would be neat, a warmer but still cold season with 13 hour days then dropping off in light and temperature to around 8 hours and a colder average in temp. Sorry for taking up so much comment space and thanks for the video!

I would really like major weather events which reward planning ahead and stockpiling.

I super love the storm idea. The storm can be announced by just a massive amount of crows moving overhead every day until the storm happens. Maybe starting like 3 days in advance. The survivor monologue could tell you something like "that can't be good." Then 3 (or any number) of days later the storm hits and you'll just be stuck in a blizzard for like a week. This would force the player to plan. Maybe after the storm, some changes would have happened to the overworld like higher snow levels making it harder for you and wildlife to move. An increased supply of wood laying about which has been snapped off during the storm. Maybe some animal carcasses lying about from animals that died in the storm. Basically some after storm rewards. Your wolf idea is also great. Especially now that timberwolves are released. Maybe add a late-game mechanic off timber wolf migration where timberwolves will start migrating into all regions, replacing normals wolves. Combining this with your food scarcity idea might be sweet, forcing you to compete with the timberwolves. Maybe a new super predator. The polar bear. Maybe it's getting so cold that polar bears will start migrating into the island. Polar bears would be harder to see against the many white backgrounds in the game. They'd be significantly more powerful than the black bear, practically guaranteeing death unless the player has max condition with the well-fed buff and they'll actively stack the player. They could also be resistant to bleed-out. As in, their bleed-out will stop after a couple of in-game hours. Alternatively, they could use grizzly bears if polar bears aren't desired for some reason. I was also thinking of late-game objectives. Maybe the player could find a pickaxe and start digging through a part in the mines for a ridiculous amount of time. Like 100 in-game hours to reach a loot chamber full of coal and other goodies. This would cost an incredible amount of calories. Or maybe something completely different like finding the code to the door of some preppers bunker which could contain unique loot like an automatic rifle or super-advanced clothes. Or an ultimate scavenger quest to repair an old steamboat, get enough coal to power, and taking time to research how to operate it so you can sail off and "win" sandbox mode. This would require multiple trips to many every part of the map to find heavy stuff to repair the boat and as well as the research books required to operate it. Now I know a lot of people hate the idea of a win state for some reason but I personally think a lot of players would appreciate having a reason to move vast distances across the map with an actual goal. Maybe some late-game events? The fuel tank of the crashed planes in pleasant valley explodes (or can be caused to explode), causing a massive avalanche that changes much of timberwolf mountain's and pleasant valley's terrain. A forest fire breaks out is coastal high way and mystery lake, burning down many of the trees and buildings there but also revealing some dark secret about the island (or something). Maybe a super aurora happens which reactivates the entire hydroelectric dam, causing it to break under the strain of the working machinery and changing much of that part of the map and maybe even opening a new zone behind the dam. A brand new ship stands in bleak inlet, coastal highway, or desolation point. Navigating it could be incredibly dangerous, maybe it's barely keeping together.

This game is missing a couple things. 1. A compass for when that evil fog gets you lost. 2. A hand-held portable transistorized radio. I never get to listen to the beautiful music that was created for this game as much as I would like to. A "Walkman" or something would be nice for those long walks or crafting jobs where there is no radio but the Aurora is active.The most consistent glitch I keep coming across, is that on one play-through I will have a half dozen crowbars and can't find a hammer and have to cover A LOT of territory to find one and vice versa! Sometimes I have 5 knives and 1 hatchet, other times 40rnds of ammo and no gun or 4 guns and no ammo! It's a sketchy dynamic for sure.

No base building. Just item modification or moving. Why can’t I pick up planks and line the doors of Old Spence families homestead

Open this to moding. OMG the possibilities that moders can add to this game would make it great! I can see this being the next skyrim in gaming age if it was open to moding. Moders are what is keeping Skyrim running still.

My ideas: Weather: Extreme blizzards - The player has five days to prepare for one. When the blizzard was about to come, player could notice less wildlife around him, because of animals running away (sometimes the wolves, deers and rabbits could be seen running around pointlessly, large number of crows could be seen flying, bears would stop going on their patrols etc.) Animals would behave like that during the day 5. The sky would be clear for 3 days, until the wind starts picking up around the day 4. Snowfall would start in the morning of day 5. On the day 6 the blizzard begins. Blizzard would last for 7 days, with tempretures below -70 degress celsious outside and -40 indoors, which would force the player to stockpile on wood too. After the blizzard some animal carcasses could be found around the regions. To make it more balanced, the chance of those extreme blizzards starting would depend on the difficulty which player chose. For example: On stalker difficulty had a chance to happen after day 75. On pilgrim it’d be a day 125. These blizzards also would have a ’cooldown’ depending on the difficulty. There is also cabin fever. To combat it player would have to spend most of his preparation days outside. The player would have to sleep outside, stockpile his supplies in front of his shelter etc. Only 4 hours in game could be spent in-doors per day. When the time limit’s reached the character would say ”I’d better spend most of my time outside.” Seasons: The snow wouldn’t melt for the whole year, however there would be some changes. Spring: Temperatures would be a warmer, wildlife would spawn more often. Bear patrol areas are bigger. Summer: Temperature would be the warmest, birch and maple saplings would regrow, Bear patrol areas are smaller. Autumn: Temperature would be a bit warmer than the temperature during the winter, reishi mushrooms and rose hips regrow, bear patrol areas are the biggest. Winter: Temperature is the coldest, wildlife spawns more rarely, bear patrol areas are the same as during the spring. Note: Cattails wouldn’t regrow, as the plant is too weak to break through the ice. New wildlife: Foxes: Foxes would be the fastest animal in the. They could outrun the wolves and the player. Their fur would be white, making them harder to spot in the snow. They would hunt rabbits. When they got their pray, they’d return to their „snow den”Overall they would be hard to hunt using the methods you hunt deers, wolves etc. If you’d want to hunt them, you’d have to track them to their den and bait them out. Then you could kill them. Their carcasses would yield: 4-5 kg of fox’s meat (around 500 calories) 1 fox’s hide 2 guts Items: Fox’s Scarf Description: A scarf made out of fox’s hide. Long and warm. It’d be made out of 3 fox’s hides and 2 guts. A scarf with statistics that are slightly better than a rabbit’s skin hat. It couldn’t’ be worn in the first head clothing slot. Double-barrel shotgun: Description: A gun made especially for hunting bears. Ineffective on a long ranges. A relic from a past era. Use it wisely. It could be found in a new region, more on that later. Double-barrel shotgun ammo is very rare. Only 2 rounds could be found in-game, forcing a player to craft some. It’d have a one-shot capability, if you were close to a predator. Shotgun ammo crafting. You’d need: -Two empty flare shells (New item). - Two bullets. - One gunpowder. Empty flare shell: A new item that’d be used to craft shotgun ammunition. You’d obtain it after disassembling a normal flare gun shell. New region: Bear’s Valley Weather: Warm region during the day. High chance of blizzards coming through during the night. Wildlife: 6-8 bears roaming the region. Not much wolves. A ton of rabbits. Not much deers. Locations: 3-6man-made structures. - Lonely Farmstead. - Old Forestry Lookout. - Abandoned Trapper’s Homestead. (Double Barreled shotgun location.) Some abandoned campsites. Natural: A ton of dens and caves. Layout: A flat region connected through the Folron Muskeg cave. Player would enter near the radio hut. On the other side of the region player could see some moutains where the abandoned trapper’s homestead would be located. There would be some rope climbes in the mountains. And a ton of bears. Way too many bears. Flare gun balance: Nerfs: It’d have its one-shot capability removed. It’s a flare gun after all, not a rifle. If you made it this far, congratiulations. I apologise for my writing / grammar mistakes. Tell me about your opinions and finally, have a nice day.

wolves that can be tamed, kiba ,tsume and toboe, cross country skis, craftable huts you can use as a base, supply sleds you can drag behind you. zip lines..

I commented on wolf pack behavior in the Steam forums several times, and I like your idea of how it could be implemented. I'd also love to see some sort of more organized weather system then just pure random, I do want it to be random, but with a randomly chosen pattern that develops over a period of anywhere from 1 day to a week or more of similar weather. For example, a high pressure area moves in and the weather trends towards sunny, with some wind at the beginning and end of this clear pattern. Then the pattern may shift to unstable weather, which would pretty much function as the weather RNG does now. Other patterns could be a major winter storm moves in and you get a blizzard or series of blizzards lasting from a single all day blizzard to a blizzard or sequence of blizzards that lasts for 2-7 days. Again, you'd see signs in game that a storm is coming, such as wildlife start to disappear from the map as they start hunkering down in their dens to wait out the weather, and you'd start seeing increasing cloud and the wind shifting to a certain direction consistently that tends to indicate a major storm coming in. Another weather effect I'd like to see is temperature variation, and not just the semi linear it gets colder over time, but have periods where it gets warmer or cooler for a period of time, following the weather trend system. If you get a warming trend, it could make traveling on ice areas more treacherous as certain areas may randomly get assigned a "weak ice" effect until it cools off again and the ice thickens. Such an effect should have a delay after it warms up to simulate that it would take time for sufficient melting to occur, and have a delay after it cools off again to simulate that it also takes time for the water to refreeze. On the other hand, a cold snap would have the opposite effect, making temperatures colder then normal for a period of time, making hypothermia more of a risk, but like the warming trend, could also randomly have some weak ice areas become safe to walk on after enough time has passed, before returning to weak ice after a reasonable delay once normal temperatures resume. I'd also like to see heat be an issue as well. It might seem counter intuitive that overheating is an issue in a frigid setting like Great Bear Island in winter, but it is a HUGE problem in cold weather survival. Build that fire up too hot, or are overdressed for the current temperatures and you're character could start getting too hot, which would have several consequences: 1- your character starts to sweat, which makes inner layers of clothing start to get wet 2- your character loses water an an accelerated rate 3-your character gets a heat stroke/exhaustion risk status effect, which acts similar to the hypothermia risk status that causes condition to degrade over time. The difference is the cure to this status is your character mush cool off, which can be done by going out into cold weather, let yourself fall into weak ice (instant hypothermia risk but ends the overheating condition instantly too), or by taking off layers of clothing. This new status condition, if combined with the warming trend weather pattern idea, would make some of the clothing items currently treated as useless and only good for harvesting (I'm looking at you t-shirts) would then become viable as a counter to being in a hot environment like working the forge or surrounded by hot fires for mass cooking.

I think being able to see storm fronts moving in in the sky box would work well with the larger storms. Like on Ch looking out at the ocean on a sunny day to see black clouds over the bay

The main thing that deterres me from playing the game, is knowing how you'll eventually die. It's almost completely out of your hands. Not by accident, but just that eventually you'll run out of antiseptic or cloth. Or scrap metal, or tree sappling. There's no way around it. That's what bothers me. I can't truly dominate the game because of that. It is possible that you can create a method, but it can only be done on pilgrim or custome to reduce extreme complications. Having your base in one of the least hostile regions, with plenty of rabbit spawns and bark nearby. Using only rabbit snares and dead carcasses to eat, and harvest gut. Boil water in using the magnifying glass. Then drink bark tea after eating to regain some health. I'm very curious to see if that method would work, the cold would kill you pretty fast if you're not wearing clothes. Also you would need a very warm bed. So yeah, you'd most likely only survive on custom if you slowed the speed of time and stayed close to fires on sunny days, but they're not always sunny🤷🏻‍♂️

I think meat stored in coolers should rot slower

I'm all for it. Provided Hinterland can Spare the time and money on such big changes.. I would like to see that (Halloween) Monster Blizzard hit once in a while. Along with darkness. I really enjoyed that! About the scouting wolves. I think its a great idea. Also I would like to see them herd you towards the pack the way we herd the deer towards them. Would make for an excellen change. 😊

Some solid ideas how to make the gameworld more challenging over time. But what those sandbox often miss are some really long team goal to archive. Something that the player can work for over several dozent gameplay hours. Be that access to a new region (blocked tunnel, requires explosives to clear), a final confrontation (some boss entity), a final way to leave the gameworld (in this case to the south rebuild some vehicle). Or expanding the game mechanics more towards interaction (hostile and friendly human NPCs) and their related quests. Another thing other sandbox game use to keep the gameworld fresh: procedural landscape generation. Player can then not rely on their gained knowledge of the areas, but must explore the world anew.

Your storm idea, it’s a great idea, to have something players need to look out for and punishes unaware players. Idk about the specific stats, but I have some ideas, like on Pilgrim no storms will happen, Voyageur first storm 80 days in, a week warning period and then a grace period of 50-60 (days break until a chance of a storm happening) days in, Stalker 60 days in, 4 days warning, then grace of 40, and Loper 50-60 days in, 2 days warning and then grace of 25-30. Storm lengths should be random but more higher difficulties should be more punishing (though I’m not a dev as well so I can’t say anything). There should be a reward for the player enduring the storm and stockpiling, to help replenish the resources used. Like, more branches and limbs could be knocked down than usual to give loads of fire wood, wildlife could come out of hiding, repopulated (because animals can toootally repopulate in a week or two) providing the player with more food, or aggression, with aggressive wildlife generally on a smaller ratio than peaceful ones. On higher difficulties, more reward can be provided, however more aggressive wildlife (wolves) may come at an increased ratio compared to peaceful ones, including bares and moose, which can be even more rewarding for enduring the storm. These are just my thoughts though, great ideas as always!

Thanks for all of your well thought out content. I really like your ideas for pack behavior and would love to see that implemented. As for storms, yes please. The higher the difficulty the longer the inclimate weather. Simple and seemingly easy to add.

Maybe Hinterland should add something like what Far Cry does. Far Cry has special animals that you could hunt that give you special hides. Hinterland could add something like this, such as a bear that could be a winter color and coat and it could only be found in a region in a span of a week in randomized caves? But after all this finding and hunting (which should be extremely hard) you could get some really good stuff? Eh, just sayin’. You know, like maybe in fifty days those winter wolves (red eyes in the night :O) these would hunt you wherever you were, making travel difficult. These are like the big brothers of these sorta weaker animals. What I’m getting at is-MORE ANIMALS!!!

At a certain point, you could receive random objectives from NPCs. They could give you tasks like deliver food and medical supplies to a location, craft a unique item, or find an object somewhere and bring it back. There would be somewhat of a time constraint to force players to move steadily towards the objective, potentially through unfavorable conditions. There would be a mix of planned missions and emergency situations. As the run progresses, the missions could take place further from the player's active base in more hostile regions, with some missions requiring objectives in multiple regions. I don't know what would motivate the player to take these missions nor what the penalty for failure would be. This could potentially be a different game mode.

Do you have something that makes your HUD the old version? I just played yesterday and all of my status icons are in the left corner with a "timer" bar.

There's been some updates but as for what can be added or changed in terms of making it fun and challenging there's 3 aspects. 1) weather degradation should simply get worse over time relatively to clothing. So in 100 days you would want rabbit skin mittens hat and deerskin boots. By 200 days you want a wolf skin coat or moose cloak and eventually it will cap when on a good day you're wearing 2 wolfskin coats and on bad days you're wearing 2 bearskin coats. But during blizzards you're screwed no matter what so making blizzards last long or more frequent would be interesting. I don't have a problem with cabin fever as I hang outside as much as possible even going in and out of shelter until I can sleep. I say this in case they want to implement weather patterns as you stated. Though average weather temperatures would get worse until capping below inherently possible in the game. 2) wildlife (beyond bleak inlet) could use some randomization where wolves would stalk you and give up but as time goes on they get desperate and stalk you more even attacking you randomly. Unless they change how wolves spawn and roam It's best that their behavior has a gradient of desperation as deer populations would become more rare and can be implemented by decreasing number of deer spawning forcing wolves to hunt you as the only viable prey. They could spawn less making exploration safer but make encounters more dangerous as they'll hunt you down and attack if you go beyond their territorial range. In the end all animals will end up spawning few in between forcing you to hunt anything you encounter. This game is challenging as is and a few expected implementations that I suggested would make it more interesting that being wolf desperation decreased wildlife spawning and average temperature decrease.

the wolves should get more desperate and bold over time especially in harder difficulties. for example as their natural food sources run out, they will begin to starve. as a result, they become more desperate and are more likely to charge the player, and if for example they manage to latch on to you and maul you, their less inclined to give up and it will take more swings to get them off of you as time goes on. this idea always made lots of logical sense to me. what do you think?

Good idea's I feel that they should add a option to make timberwolves replace wolves in all regions.

I love the wolf pack idea and I have had it myself but not as in depth as you said it I would also like to see the wolf’s or wolf pack interact with the bears

@6:21 actually that wouldn't be a bad way to end an endless game. They could scale it up with no roof. Maybe that scaling is very slow, but there will be a point at which all the best gear in the world, and a forge with 500 pieces of coal couldn't warm you up. That is how Project Winter ends after. After 30mins the "mega blizzard" starts, so if the good guys have not escaped off the map, they will freeze to death. yeah they COULD live another 2mins depending in gear and buffs, but they basically screwed after a certain point edit: Oh looks like this idea was covered later in video. Another idea which i had was to make weather cycles last longer, or make the bad ones last longer. So having a long period of a long ass storm. This was also covered in the video though :D

Few ideas : 1- Could make the interiors areas impacted by the temperature outside 2- Interiors are colder and need fire to be comfortable, once fire has been out temp would degrade slowly forcing you to kind of maintain temp where you stay 3- In relation to the harsher interiors cabin fever should be reduced as the player is anyway forced at some point to find firewood

I guess the dev probably heard this idea hence they added Bleak Inlet with Timberwolves into the game, lol.

In my current Stalker game, I've been achievement hunting. Got Faithful Cartographer at day 300 after much pain. Now after looting every single part of every map, I have moved it all to Coatal Highway. I go on it every few days, sit in the car outside the garage. Wait 6 hours... eat, drink, sleep 8 hours, wait 6 hours... eat drink, sleep.... etc. Maybe go hunt a bear if I feel like going for a walk. Repair clothes and melt more snow every 20 days or so. Going for that 500 day alive achievement. But at day 300 I had basically completed it. I have so much food and items stockpiled I dont even have to go fishing. Also it only gets cold for 2 hours before dawn when the "Feels like" in the car gets to -1 -2. Not cold enough for long enough to be a problem, but i'm not even wearing my warmest clothes. I tend to wear my most-animal-resistance clothes. So yeah, no challenge at all

yep, there is a timberwolf update in a new sandbox patch. It means that at the specific places they will cooperate in a pack, just like IRL. So permadeath will be a little bit closer. Nice challenge. Now i will evade the wolfs at a kilometer range :D

How about a negative effects tree? Permanent health and gameplay consequences of repeated injuries, lack of nutrition, exposure, etc... For example, freeze too many times and you would become increasingly sensitive to cold (reduced body temp max) Starve too many times and you suffer heart abnormalities (reduced maximuml life). It would balance the skill perks out and the game would never really get easy end-game because gameplay itself would be increasingly punishing?

thats what im always saying. for me the mid game is the most fun, but lets start over. Early game : u have nothing and need to survive while also exploring the world, looking for supplies and a main base that offers alot. Mid-game : u have the safety of ur main base and start collecting more stuff in a circle around that base to increase ur odds of survival. Mid-game 2 : u have enough supplies to feel confident and u start to increase ur gear by crafting better clothes, gather lots of wood etc. Mid-game 3 : u fill out the map and collect the rest of the collectable items further away in other maps and bring it back to the base. up to this point its really challenging and fun. Late-game : u have everything u need and since u collected most of the items there is no need to leave the base other than some fresh air, fishing, kill animals for meat or collecting wood. there are no quests, no npcs, no goals. it became stale and boring. such a great game, such a great start and yet i close the game bored of survival and wait for the next episode 1 year

How about having to lock pick doors in real time. How are all these house and containers unlocked?

Another cool video

I would like to see whales on the sea. Specially at desolation point.

I have a idea for a challenge, you have to survive for like 50 days but it’s always a freezing temperature.

Id love to see one single snowmobile for game...I know its noobish and unfair to the game but It will awesome to me. And the prejudice to run of an open vehicle on the maps maybe will more cold and wet cloths of course. Yeah, english its not my first language, Hope you guys understand me, lol

On sandbox mountain town i have small challenge . I need to craft deer pants and three tons of wolf wanna eat me i need to go to workbench . After that i need food since IM playing on stalker . Food Will be rare rare and rare just because of well Fed bonus that mean i need to find food. Ah deer . Lucky i have rifle. Also i got mauled by wolf get me 100%-51% because there tons of wolf near the big house .

How about multiplayer with diminishing resourses. Players might work together at first but eventually they have to kill each other to survive. Not knowing how long you can trust you're companion will make you paranoid

I had an idea, on day 100 the aurora should re-animate all the frozen corpses into zombies, which begin to roam the map. Naturally, they will need to add a shotgun and chainsaw to the game ;)

hmmmm