Mental Loop

[Dr.Gonzo1836]

I broke my leg as hunter and that got my depression and stress up massively. Now I can't seem to bring it up, I've done everything i can, I'm at medium comfort for the house, I've spent hours practicing and playing the flute, and things justk eep tanking it. Then there's some entity attacking me, if I beat it do I get a boost? I feel stuck in an endless spiral.

[Mattrex]

Repeatedly doing the same task (like playing the flute) gives diminishing returns for entertainment. To help keep stress down, you need to vary your entertainments.

In addition to playing the flute, you can go swimming (ideally at the Beach, not the Bay, as you don't want to attract a shark and make things even worse) and build sand castles. Carving figurines from boar tusks or wooden blocks also provides entertainment and morale. You will probably want to build a sand castle at least once a day while stressed out.

Staying in the same place for a long time - which you will be tempted to do if you have a leg fracture - will increase your stress, so even if it takes a while you will want to move around a bit to new zones every now and then.

Fishing doesn't require leg movement - meaning it doesn't take longer with a leg fracture - and gives morale, so it might be a good thing to spend some time doing that. You're going to need the extra food anyway.

Eating prepared meals gives a bigger morale boost (and more nutrition) than eating staples, so try to focus on making good food while you're healing.

Drink enough kava to eliminate any pain, and keep it down. If you have to max out your analgesia in order to do it, so be it. If you have alcohol on hand, drink it. Pain is a huge contributor to stress and morale loss.

Make sure your fracture has a splint at all times. Apply aloe gel frequently. You want to heal it as fast as possible, because the negative effects of the wound will diminish as it gets closer to being fully healed.

Fractures are serious wounds, and even if you are fully stocked and prepared for the eventuality, your life is going to suck for a little while. If you aren't prepared, they can be lethal. You might just have to struggle to keep yourself alive until the wound gets better and you pull out of the spiral.

The best cure is prevention. Fractures can only happen after a bad fall or being wounded by a boar. If you don't have the supplies and stability to treat a fracture, don't do things that might lead to one.

Having a climbing skill of 67% or higher will completely prevent fractures from climbing (though not sprains, abrasions, or bruises; still, all of those are far less dangerous wounds), and you cannot fracture a limb when practicing climbing or while climbing up and down in the island's cave system. Fractures only happen when scaling cliffs or palm trees. Having a rope on hand makes climbing less risky; climbing while it's raining makes it more risky.

Boars are extremely dangerous animals. Not only can they give you limb fractures, they can also lacerate you, which is a life-threatening wound in its own right. Because of this, you have a 100% chance of escaping from any boar encounter - they will never chase and wound you if you decide to disengage. So you can completely control the circumstances under which you risk a wound from a boar; again, if you can't afford the potential consequences, don't attack.

[Dr.Gonzo1836]

So I'm well passed the fracture (got it from falling) but the problem is that I tried flute, I tried carving, tried sandcastles, etc, the problem is I got so damaged when I was hurt (not enough kava around) that I lost sanity a lot, now I keep getting this thing telling me i need to move or some being will hurt me, as well as these nightmares where I see my own face, how do I deal with these?

[Mattrex]

The Hunter will chase you down and force a fight. If you beat him, you get a sanity boost - if you fail, he gives you a wound that further impacts your mental structure.

The only way to "win" against the Watcher, as far as I know, is to have enough mental structure to continue staring at it and then banish it with either a void insight or divine insight. Otherwise you need to bring your morale and mental structure up through other means.

If your mental structure is low, it can be improved by doing things that promote a safe, stable environment. Wear as much clothing as you can, eat regularly, spend time in a house with good comforts, and sleep on a regular schedule. If you have Weston, avoid talking to him unless it's necessary to combat loneliness; talking to a coconut is not great for your mental health. (Same goes for the Captain.)

Craft and wear a couple of seashell necklaces. These improve your morale and mental structure both. Copper or pearl necklaces are even better. Make sure you're wearing hand and foot wrappings, which can be crafted by examining pieces of cloth (not small cloth). Shirt, woven hat, leaf skirt or leather pants, leather gloves, and coconut sandals or leather shoes are all beneficial to mental structure. If you can find a China Rose in the Jungle Highlands, pick it and wear it in your hair.

If you have it unlocked, build a shower outside your hut and use it if you need to get clean. It's better for mental health than washing by hand.

Sleep in the best-quality bed you can build. Wooden beds are best, followed by hammocks and rustic beds, then bedrolls and leaf beds. Sleep, rather than nap, if you can afford the time expenditure; sleeping gives double the mental structure regen.

Avoid eating bugs. Civilized people don't eat bugs.

Eat prepared meals as often as you can; each prepared meal you eat gives you a flat boost to mental structure.

Avoid alcohol and coffee.

Sleep with the lights on.

[Dr.Gonzo1836]

This all seems overwhelmed by this huge boost to stress for staying in my house by "being hunted" so it feels impossible

[HalleysComet]

Originally posted by Dr.Gonzo1836:

This all seems overwhelmed by this huge boost to stress for staying in my house by "being hunted" so it feels impossible

Watcher won’t come if you don’t stay in darkness, so you need to lit fire at night.
If your hunter have enough spear fighting, you should stay in the same place to face the ghost(hunter), with max spear fighting you have about 50% chance to beat it, once you succeed it is gone forever.
The different tunes of flute count as different actions, so it’s a good way to lower stress.(There are nine tunes, simple, happy, sad, weston, lonely, advanced, sea, jungle and cave)

[Floyyd]

Originally posted by Mattrex:

Repeatedly doing the same task (like playing the flute) gives diminishing returns for entertainment. To help keep stress down, you need to vary your entertainments.

In addition to playing the flute, you can go swimming (ideally at the Beach, not the Bay, as you don't want to attract a shark and make things even worse) and build sand castles. Carving figurines from boar tusks or wooden blocks also provides entertainment and morale. You will probably want to build a sand castle at least once a day while stressed out.

Staying in the same place for a long time - which you will be tempted to do if you have a leg fracture - will increase your stress, so even if it takes a while you will want to move around a bit to new zones every now and then.

Fishing doesn't require leg movement - meaning it doesn't take longer with a leg fracture - and gives morale, so it might be a good thing to spend some time doing that. You're going to need the extra food anyway.

Eating prepared meals gives a bigger morale boost (and more nutrition) than eating staples, so try to focus on making good food while you're healing.

Drink enough kava to eliminate any pain, and keep it down. If you have to max out your analgesia in order to do it, so be it. If you have alcohol on hand, drink it. Pain is a huge contributor to stress and morale loss.

Make sure your fracture has a splint at all times. Apply aloe gel frequently. You want to heal it as fast as possible, because the negative effects of the wound will diminish as it gets closer to being fully healed.

Fractures are serious wounds, and even if you are fully stocked and prepared for the eventuality, your life is going to suck for a little while. If you aren't prepared, they can be lethal. You might just have to struggle to keep yourself alive until the wound gets better and you pull out of the spiral.

The best cure is prevention. Fractures can only happen after a bad fall or being wounded by a boar. If you don't have the supplies and stability to treat a fracture, don't do things that might lead to one.

Having a climbing skill of 67% or higher will completely prevent fractures from climbing (though not sprains, abrasions, or bruises; still, all of those are far less dangerous wounds), and you cannot fracture a limb when practicing climbing or while climbing up and down in the island's cave system. Fractures only happen when scaling cliffs or palm trees. Having a rope on hand makes climbing less risky; climbing while it's raining makes it more risky.

Boars are extremely dangerous animals. Not only can they give you limb fractures, they can also lacerate you, which is a life-threatening wound in its own right. Because of this, you have a 100% chance of escaping from any boar encounter - they will never chase and wound you if you decide to disengage. So you can completely control the circumstances under which you risk a wound from a boar; again, if you can't afford the potential consequences, don't attack.

You said keeping a rope on hand makes climbing less risky, do I just have to have the rope in my inventory to receive this buff? Or do you actually use the rope when climbing?

[Mattrex]

Having the rope in your hand row (bottom row) or equipped to your inventory gives you the buff. It's worth about 3-4% Climbing skill for success calculation purposes.

[Enchantress]

Originally posted by Mattrex:

Having the rope in your hand row (bottom row) or equipped to your inventory gives you the buff. It's worth about 3-4% Climbing skill for success calculation purposes.

i'm super embarrassed to say with all my hours in this game i never knew this. thanks for the insight!

[HalleysComet]

Originally posted by Enchantress:

Originally posted by Mattrex:

Having the rope in your hand row (bottom row) or equipped to your inventory gives you the buff. It's worth about 3-4% Climbing skill for success calculation purposes.

i'm super embarrassed to say with all my hours in this game i never knew this. thanks for the insight! :_Peace_:

Unfortunately rope only helps climbing coconut tree, when climbing caves and cliffs it does nothing.
BTW raining affects climbing a lot, especially when climbing cliffs.

[Enchantress]

Originally posted by HalleysComet:

Originally posted by Enchantress:

i'm super embarrassed to say with all my hours in this game i never knew this. thanks for the insight!

Unfortunately rope only helps climbing coconut tree, when climbing caves and cliffs it does nothing.
BTW raining affects climbing a lot, especially when climbing cliffs.

that's a bummer to hear i was hoping it would help me climb out of the tight spots we find ourselves in...but it's great to help me train climbing to 100%. thanks so much for letting me know

[Neomare]

Originally posted by Dr.Gonzo1836:

So I'm well passed the fracture (got it from falling) but the problem is that I tried flute, I tried carving, tried sandcastles, etc, the problem is I got so damaged when I was hurt (not enough kava around) that I lost sanity a lot, now I keep getting this thing telling me i need to move or some being will hurt me, as well as these nightmares where I see my own face, how do I deal with these?

The Hunter you have to defeat. It will keep coming until you kill it and the stress it causes if you run will make the run very anoying regardless. It is hard to do but keep trying. until you defeat it the stress will not be managable so do your best to survive and keep trying.

The Watcher you can defeat by winning a staring contest against it - it will probably take multipler tries to do it but keep trying.

Neither of them will kill you but they will make your mental stats horible... which means really slow actions which usually ends up by player not being able to gather enough food and water or prepare well enough for the dry season. Hopefully you know how to survive with this huge penalties until you can defeat them.

And yes once you get into a mental spiral it is hard to get out of it but having medium comfort is a step in the right direction. Next one is to defeat these 2.. final one is to stay in house as much as you can as the comfort slowly heals your mental stats.

Good luck!

[Sinrea]

Originally posted by Neomare:

Originally posted by Dr.Gonzo1836:

So I'm well passed the fracture (got it from falling) but the problem is that I tried flute, I tried carving, tried sandcastles, etc, the problem is I got so damaged when I was hurt (not enough kava around) that I lost sanity a lot, now I keep getting this thing telling me i need to move or some being will hurt me, as well as these nightmares where I see my own face, how do I deal with these?

The Hunter you have to defeat. It will keep coming until you kill it and the stress it causes if you run will make the run very anoying regardless. It is hard to do but keep trying. until you defeat it the stress will not be managable so do your best to survive and keep trying.

The Watcher you can defeat by winning a staring contest against it - it will probably take multipler tries to do it but keep trying.

Neither of them will kill you but they will make your mental stats horible... which means really slow actions which usually ends up by player not being able to gather enough food and water or prepare well enough for the dry season. Hopefully you know how to survive with this huge penalties until you can defeat them.

And yes once you get into a mental spiral it is hard to get out of it but having medium comfort is a step in the right direction. Next one is to defeat these 2.. final one is to stay in house as much as you can as the comfort slowly heals your mental stats.

Good luck!

Great hint! Thank you :) ... I have both of them at the Same time and they are super annoying.