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The Long Dark |OT| The True North Strong and Freezing

N° 2048

Member
Oh yeah sorry I got it mixed up haha

I just meant it seems like the game still has some issues all around so it probably wouldn't hurt to either take your time going through it or wait. I feel like survival mode is a low risk affair because it's designed to be played over again after you die.

My plan is to finish episode 1 and take a break from story before moving to episode 2, maybe wait for a few patches and just hone my skills in survival.



Anyways, here's the full patch notes for PS4 as of today's 1.03

Hmmm, not a bad idea. I'll follow :)
 
I'm really enjoying the Survival mode.

On Voyager difficulty the game became easy too fast. I wouldn't even get cold outside because I had some of the best clothing and the only challenge was managing my inventory.

So now I restarted on Stalker and it's significantly harder. I really struggle with the cold because the damn wolves keep ripping my clothes apart :(
Food and drink items are also much rarer which makes hunting more important.
 
I'm really enjoying the Survival mode.

On Voyager difficulty the game became easy too fast. I wouldn't even get cold outside because I had some of the best clothing and the only challenge was managing my inventory.

So now I restarted on Stalker and it's significantly harder. I really struggle with the cold because the damn wolves keep ripping my clothes apart :(
Food and drink items are also much rarer which makes hunting more important.

Hmmmm I've been playing Voyager because I'm a wimp and too scared to move up

What do you hunt with primarily? A rifle? I've never found a bow... Do you have to craft it?
 

owlbeak

Member
Anybody tried PS4 version since the patch? Less crashes or should I just stay on PC?

In regards to Survival mode....whichever level is the next to highest is brutal. I was getting my ass handed to me last night and dying rapidly to cold...and wolves.
 
Anybody tried PS4 version since the patch? Less crashes or should I just stay on PC?

In regards to Survival mode....whichever level is the next to highest is brutal. I was getting my ass handed to me last night and dying rapidly to cold...and wolves.

I haven't played on PS4 but the patch notes I posted on the last page specifically address crash fixes so it might be worth checking out
 
Any tips for weight? I pick up everything I see lol so I become over-encumbered.

In your items menu you can filter everything by weight. Just stash any heavy items you don't need right now for later. And make sure you are well rested as fatigue affects the degree to which the weight you are carrying will slow your movement.
 
Any tips for weight? I pick up everything I see lol so I become over-encumbered.

Same. I just deal with it, the slowness is worth it for the extra food I can carry and I haven't noticed any real negative consequences


In your items menu you can filter everything by weight. Just stash any heavy items you don't need right now for later. And make sure you are well rested as fatigue affects the degree to which the weight you are carrying will slow your movement.

Do items persist where you leave them? Even in Story?
 
Same. I just deal with it, the slowness is worth it for the extra food I can carry and I haven't noticed any real negative consequences




Do items persist where you leave them? Even in Story?

Not sure about story mode, I guess so? They do in sand box, though any food you store will degrade over time as will some other items like matches.
 
The wolves are killing my buzz.

They have gone from a something to respect, fear, and avoid in the EA sandbox mode, to something that's just extremely annoying in Wintermute.
 

rfield84

Banned
Need some help. I'm in Milton in story mode right now, and I need a pry bar. Without getting inti all spoilers, I'll just say I've been informed that it is in a shed by a house. So far, it's not showing up for me. Help?
 
Need some help. I'm in Milton in story mode right now, and I need a pry bar. Without getting inti all spoilers, I'll just say I've been informed that it is in a shed by a house. So far, it's not showing up for me. Help?

Did you get the hatchet? Keep looking there

Edit: at least I thought it was there.

I'm talking about the
shed behind Grey Mother's

I'm positive it's in the early part of the town when you enter at least. Sorry I can't say for sure where
 

rfield84

Banned
Did you get the hatchet? Keep looking there

Edit: at least I thought it was there.

I'm talking about the
shed behind Grey Mother's

I'm positive it's in the early part of the town when you enter at least. Sorry I can't say for sure where

I got the hatchet. Supposedly, the pry bar should be there too.
need to hit the gas station outside of Milton
and I need the pry bar I think.
 
Hmmmm I've been playing Voyager because I'm a wimp and too scared to move up

What do you hunt with primarily? A rifle? I've never found a bow... Do you have to craft it?

I obviously use stones for bunny rabbits.
I found both a rifle and bow in
Mystery Lake
. The rifle near
the radio tower that's on top of a mountain
and the bow in
a tiny lookout on a frozen pond
.

You can craft the bow and arrows as well but it will take a significant amount of time resources.
 
So on Stalker difficulty wolves attack you even when you have a burning torch in hand.
Makes perfect sense, I'm not mad at all! It's also the same fucking wolf who ran away from my camp fire and lit flare ten times!
 

N° 2048

Member
So on Stalker difficulty wolves attack you even when you have a burning torch in hand.
Makes perfect sense, I'm not mad at all! It's also the same fucking wolf who ran away from my camp fire and lit flare ten times!

So how do you deter Wolves in Stalker?
 

owlbeak

Member
My opinion on the wolves in this game (in regards to them in Milton during Wintermute, and Stalker level survival) is this:

When I played this game in EA a couple of years ago, I didn't see many wolves. But when I did, it was terrifying. I feel like I remember them being less aggressive. You would see one or two occasionally nearby, or on the periphery of your vision; just enough to make you fear them. I remember finding a rifle in a cabin during EA and seeing a wolf way out in the distance, and I didn't even bother going the way it was. They were something that was always there in the back of your mind. They felt more like they were stalking you, which is significantly scarier (especially the lower you get on supplies) than how it is now.

****slight early story location spoilers below****






The problem with how they are now, particularly in Wintermute, is that right from the jump you are practically thrown into a literal wolves den. They are everywhere fifteen minutes into the story growling, charging you, killing you, etc. You see so many wolves in the first hour of the story mode, you almost become desensitized. For me, the first few wolves induced sheer terror. Trying to run from car to car across the bridge, hoping I'd make it before it caught me. But then you get to the Church/outskirts of Milton and there are so many Wolves, and all of them charge at you, and I died repeatedly to them. This happened so much so early that seeing a wolf went from a moment of panic to how I feel now when I see one, which is just annoyed that they are there because it means I am going to have to get a light source out, and deal with them growling at me forever until they get bored/I go inside.

I think that's a problem for one of the (two?) threatening wildlife "enemies" in the game. from a game design standpoint. Bears, on the other hand, seem to be handled like the wolves used to be. I have only seen them a couple of times, and it's been off in the distance. One charged me and I had to hide in a car, and then it walked away. I am terrified of bears. Wolves are just a pain in the ass, and that's unfortunate to me.
 
I got the hatchet. Supposedly, the pry bar should be there too.
need to hit the gas station outside of Milton
and I need the pry bar I think.

You've probably found it by now, but what you're looking for is where you want to go anyway. Check outside first.
 
Episode 1 done.

I really liked it as something that adds structure to the game, the execution of applying some linearity and context to the sandbox elements works great, I was rarely confused or lost on where to go which is surprising given how large some of the areas are.

As for the narrative, I thought it actually started pretty strong but stumbled in the middle and end. I know the premise isn't really unique but I thought the acting and music in cutscenes sold it well. The main problem is that I think the Milton section just drags, and the episode ends way too abruptly. It's rough around the edges for sure.

My hope is that the team's experience making episodes 1/2 will help them make the remaining ones a bit more engaging and polished from a storytelling perspective. This is definitely a good start though.

I'm absolutely exhausted from that lengthy episode I'm going to take a good break before starting Episode 2. Will play survival mode and wait for some patches and then jump back in refreshed in a bit.
 

The launch is disappointing but don't blame yourself, if you had 'looked into their rep' pre-release you'd have found nothing but praise. It seems like the launch was simply not ready to go, this is by far the buggiest the game has ever been. The game clearly needed much more QA, especially on consoles.

As for those Reddit posts, the ones about lost saves are legitimate but people calling them 'liars' and 'thieves' are indeed being a little dramatic, in my opinion.
 
Why doesn't that guy understand that the main character was just in a plane crash and wants to find his ex wife, but they decided we should fetch stuff for other people who aren't even giving us information until we help them. Which makes them an asshole.

This is Fallout 4 all over again.
 

Djostikk

Member
Finished both episodes, it was okay, but mainly just fetch quests for two different people. I hope story will improve next time.
 

Gamezone

Gold Member
Are there any moral choices in this game at all? The first trailer indicated that there would be many.
 
I can't manage to survive for long on any start other than Mystery Lake on Stalker. I know Mystery Lake pretty well so starting there gets boring.
Decided to try Pleasant Valley. It's not pleasant at all. Should be renamed to Blizzard Valley. Barely managed so survive the first couple days without any real shelter. Found the main shelter in the area after that but ran out of food. Wanted to move on but got attack by FOUR fucking wolves during heavy fog. MOTHERF*****

Are there any moral choices in this game at all? The first trailer indicated that there would be many.

To kill or to release the bunny.
That is the tough moral choice.
 
Latest PS4 patch is live, supposed to fix the rest of the crashing issues which also resolves the save file bug some people experienced.
 
Keeps crashing on XB1 too with loss of saves. Shame as the game has behaved pretty well through game preview.

Yeah they've been tweeting about Xbox, it seems like Microsoft's cert process is super slow. They had a second patch ready to go on launch day but the first patch took almost a week to clear and they couldn't submit the new one until that happened.

Not sure what the ETA is there though :(
 

Severance

Member
I'm generally enjoying story mode so far. It's nothing groundbreaking by any means, but it developed some intrigue. Now how will it play out? That will define how story mode will be. I finished episode 1, and will be starting episode 2 next. Speaking of which, the worst part so far is the end of episode 1. What was that? I honestly thought The Long Dark bugged out on me because the end cutscene was so short and jarring. It doesn't feel right. I had to watch it again on YouTube but nope, that's all there is.
 
I'm generally enjoying story mode so far. It's nothing groundbreaking by any means, but it developed some intrigue. Now how will it play out? That will define how story mode will be. I finished episode 1, and will be starting episode 2 next. Speaking of which, the worst part so far is the end of episode 1. What was that? I honestly thought The Long Dark bugged out on me because the end cutscene was so short and jarring. It doesn't feel right. I had to watch it again on YouTube but nope, that's all there is.

Yeah I mentioned that in my post above when I talked about the clumsiness of some stuff. The real time cutscenes definitely need work, it'd be cool if they showed the clothing you're wearing too.

Their creative director said on Twitter they're carefully listening to everything people are saying so hopefully now that they got a couple episodes under their belt they can refine that stuff moving forward
 
PS4 patch 1.07 is out in NA, coming to Steam shortly

More adjustments to wolves thankfully

Please note that for the time being, the PS4 patches for Europe and the Americas will be out of sync. We'll get them aligned as soon as we can, so that both versions have the same fixes.

PS4 Patch for The Long Dark -- Updates the Game to Version 1.07 (32337)
WARNING: There may be Story spoilers in these notes.

* Difficulty tuning of Wolves in Episode One. Struggle should be more survivable for new players.
* Fixed issue with Rope Fall section of Episode One, where players could get stuck due to a scripting bug.
* Improved cover flow UI for Episode Selection to make it more obvious that there are two available episodes.
* Fixed issue with Aurora probability in Survival Mode. Auroras should now appear more reliably.
* Fixed some camera popping in Episode One cinematics.
* Fixed scripting error in "Fix My Rifle?" that could create mission logic issues.
* Fixed issue in Bear Hunt mission where the Ear would not spawn under certain circumstances.
* Fixed issue with Mackenzie clipping through the chair in some Episode One cinematics.
* Fixed issue with missing Milton Knowledge strings.
* Fixed issue with not being able to pick up the Bear Hide in Jeremiah's "Survival School".

### END OF PATCH NOTES ###

We're continuing to fix additional issues as quickly as we can. Thank you for your patience.

- The Hinterland Team
 
Any tips for weight? I pick up everything I see lol so I become over-encumbered.

break down newspapers and newspaper rolls into tinders. tinders are lighter to carry.

carry between 2-4 gallons of water, not more as it adds alot to weight.

eat most perished food first.

break down unneeded clothing items into cloth/leather/etc as it is lighter to carry.

repair any clothing items in the yellow with cloth, or make bandages with cloth. cloth can get heavy if you have alot.


I got like over 100 hours on Long dark. I use to see how long I could survive back when it was in early access. I first wanted to see if I could make it to 100 days. Once I got past 100 days I just realized I could live forever and stopped playing. then when they brought challenges into the game, I got back into it and knocked those out the park. One of those challenges was hard as hell tho. can't remember which one it was.

if you got any questions I can help.

I can't manage to survive for long on any start other than Mystery Lake on Stalker. I know Mystery Lake pretty well so starting there gets boring.
Decided to try Pleasant Valley. It's not pleasant at all. Should be renamed to Blizzard Valley. Barely managed so survive the first couple days without any real shelter. Found the main shelter in the area after that but ran out of food. Wanted to move on but got attack by FOUR fucking wolves during heavy fog. MOTHERF*****

yea

Pleasant valley is a trap. It has so many amazing items, so many good spots to camp/stay and replenishment of meat (wolves and bear respawns)....

but the blizzards will totally screw you over. With that said, that is where i made my final destination and surpassed like 150+ days of survival. But blizzards literally almost ended me alot of times.
 
Latest PS4 patch is live and should address the last big issue which was the corrupt saves.

I believe both console versions should be in decent shape now.

Can anyone report on performance? Thinking about double dipping but not sure if I should go PS4 or XB
 

zou

Member
bananafactory: any way to have the menu trigger/show faster w/o the delay? right now there is a noticeable delay, probably burned myself half a dozen times because rather than selecting a menu entry my character moved forward.

and it would be helpful to make the player aware of the map info that's added by grey mother, I only saw the markers after I completed each quest.

edit: the delay shows up after selecting a previous action, so putting down a fire then trying to drink or w/e results in you walking into the fire.
 
Probably going to pick this up in the next week.

Has there been a general verdict yet on which version is better (PS4 or Xbox One)? I've got a PS4 Pro and a vanilla XBO.
 

zou

Member
so, I'm stuck after completing episode 2, quest 1. got him his meds, got the cut scene and that was it. can't talk to him, don't have another quest and can't leave the area. it's been more than 5 days and I checked back every other day.

anything I can do? don't feel like starting over..
 

The Argus

Member
Oh wow, there's a campaign now? I feel like I got this 2 years ago during a Steam sale for like $10. It was a fun permadeath game with interesting mechanics like freezing weather and ultra sparse supplies. It was totally different than The Forest which I still adore and I probably put 15 hours into it.

Ended up deleting it during a rebuild, and now I hear it's turned for the worst, even when gaining a ton of modes. Lame.
 

N° 2048

Member
Probably going to pick this up in the next week.

Has there been a general verdict yet on which version is better (PS4 or Xbox One)? I've got a PS4 Pro and a vanilla XBO.

DO NOT but this game. It is broken on consoles, they are still trying to fix it.
 
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