Healing items...

[gribelo]

Wiki says bandages are healing one bar of health, but in fact I managed to heal like 1,5 bars of health and next I was hit hard in a fight and yet bandages effect was still kicking in and healed at least another bar of health. So it was like 2,5-3 bars of healing not just one.

This is a LOW TIER healing item? What is the point in alcohol bandages and pills then? They are even more powerfull? This is a bad design, bug or I missing something?

I have stockpiles of everything bcz life is too easy in game, you can drink from the well and regenerate whole health bar, you regenerate whole health bar in the morning, you regenerate whole health bar using "low tier" item.

I keep reading about "extreme" difficulty, challenge and scarce resources and dont get it. I keep selling surplus of stuff yet I have stockpile of everything, every piece of furniture is full, workbench is full.. Maybe difficulty levels should be not only about permadeath, but about some REAL challenge?

Can anyone explain why survival part of game feels so extremely easy and unbalanced?

[Null Winter]

Remember that on Nightmare, the original difficulty, things only need to go catastrophically wrong once to end your game. Your stockpile will not help you, in that case.

A later negative trait also heavily reduces the amount of healing you get, if you opt to level up that far.

[gribelo]

Originally posted by Null Winter:

Remember that on Nightmare, the original difficulty, things only need to go catastrophically wrong once to end your game. Your stockpile will not help you, in that case.

A later negative trait also heavily reduces the amount of healing you get, if you opt to level up that far.

I understand this, but thats not an answer to my question. This game have great atmosphere, proper horror elements, cool "Soviet" stuff here and there. This is well done, no questions.

Unfortunately survival part is unfinished and not balanced. Stuck in one step from masterpiece. Thats how I see it. Most basic healing item says its for "moderate wounds" but heals whole health 2 times. I think its broken feature and bad design. Easy to fix and make it work as intended by patch, isnt it?

[gribelo]

Originally posted by Null Winter:

Remember that on Nightmare, the original difficulty, things only need to go catastrophically wrong once to end your game. Your stockpile will not help you, in that case.

A later negative trait also heavily reduces the amount of healing you get, if you opt to level up that far.

And about permadeath in games. I can see the motives, why developers try to put it into the games, but lets be a honest. Nobody wants it. Nobody wants to waste 2 weeks of his life again to find that crate somewhere on the map. It can be cool for couple of restarts, but next it causes frustration, nothing more. When someone says he enjoys wasting 6 months of his real life doing the same things in virtual life to make only a little progress - he lies or he have problems in his head.

Only way I personally can accept permadeath in game, if this game is 90% randomly generated each time, including quests, NPCs and key elements, basically it should be new game each time, not just reshuffle of locations.

What Im trying to say is permadeath is not a thing which should be a core for game design. Must be an option or implemented in some smart and creative way.

[Spogg]

the thing with healing items is that they heal you slowly and take time to use, so they do heal you a lot but you can't really use them it combat.

i think the best dificulty is hard beacuse normal is too forgiving and nightmare is to punishing.

i think the idea of bandages is not how much they heal but how slow they do it. also you wana be using that cloth for other purposes like molis, lights and armor...

[gribelo]

Well, what I want to say..

Game is outstanding if you steadily move trough the story, like watching TV series. Cool design and native horror, but survival element is not really here. Too bad, bcz they already had a base for open world experience, most things for long sustained gameplay are done and basically there is one step from making survival great as well.

Ok, I have one question. Some random enemies respawn in forests from time to time or not? I suppose not but maybe Im wrong?

[kiario]

Originally posted by gribelo:

Originally posted by Null Winter:

Remember that on Nightmare, the original difficulty, things only need to go catastrophically wrong once to end your game. Your stockpile will not help you, in that case.

A later negative trait also heavily reduces the amount of healing you get, if you opt to level up that far.

And about permadeath in games. I can see the motives, why developers try to put it into the games, but lets be a honest. Nobody wants it. Nobody wants to waste 2 weeks of his life again to find that crate somewhere on the map. It can be cool for couple of restarts, but next it causes frustration, nothing more. When someone says he enjoys wasting 6 months of his real life doing the same things in virtual life to make only a little progress - he lies or he have problems in his head.

Only way I personally can accept permadeath in game, if this game is 90% randomly generated each time, including quests, NPCs and key elements, basically it should be new game each time, not just reshuffle of locations.

What Im trying to say is permadeath is not a thing which should be a core for game design. Must be an option or implemented in some smart and creative way.

Excuse me but the Permadeath fetaure of Darkwood is one of the best things in the game.
Speak for yourself, not for everyone!!! You must have learnt that as a kid no?

PErmadeath is something I value highly in games. And it can be a deciding factor if I buy and play the game or not.

So there you have it, dont say " Nobody wants it" again mister!!!!!

[FireNative]

The best health items are the pills. There are 2 different items marked as "pills" but one give you instant full health and one gives you a stamina boast. I just keep stacks of the full health pills, 2 full stacks on me and as many as I can in my workbench.

[gribelo]

Originally posted by kiario:

Originally posted by gribelo:

And about permadeath in games. I can see the motives, why developers try to put it into the games, but lets be a honest. Nobody wants it. Nobody wants to waste 2 weeks of his life again to find that crate somewhere on the map. It can be cool for couple of restarts, but next it causes frustration, nothing more. When someone says he enjoys wasting 6 months of his real life doing the same things in virtual life to make only a little progress - he lies or he have problems in his head.

Only way I personally can accept permadeath in game, if this game is 90% randomly generated each time, including quests, NPCs and key elements, basically it should be new game each time, not just reshuffle of locations.

What Im trying to say is permadeath is not a thing which should be a core for game design. Must be an option or implemented in some smart and creative way.

Excuse me but the Permadeath fetaure of Darkwood is one of the best things in the game.
Speak for yourself, not for everyone!!! You must have learnt that as a kid no?

PErmadeath is something I value highly in games. And it can be a deciding factor if I buy and play the game or not.

So there you have it, dont say " Nobody wants it" again mister!!!!!

I said LETS BE HONEST and its hard for me to believe that anyone in his mind plays such games as intended with permadeath without at least backups of saves from time to time.

I know how human brain works and can make some general conclussions not only for myself but for majority of average men and they are about 90-95% of population. You must be very rare and special kind of man with LOT OF FREE TIME and TRUE PASSION if you are not just lying or exaggerate your excitement about permadeath in games.

Ok, I see you are really offended )) Almost nobody wants it and you (and other true adepts of permadeath of course) are not one of these average guys. LOL!

[kiario]

Originally posted by gribelo:

Originally posted by kiario:

Excuse me but the Permadeath fetaure of Darkwood is one of the best things in the game.
Speak for yourself, not for everyone!!! You must have learnt that as a kid no?

PErmadeath is something I value highly in games. And it can be a deciding factor if I buy and play the game or not.

So there you have it, dont say " Nobody wants it" again mister!!!!!

I said LETS BE HONEST and its hard for me to believe that anyone in his mind plays such games as intended with permadeath without at least backups of saves from time to time.

I know how human brain works and can make some general conclussions not only for myself but for majority of average men and they are about 90-95% of population. You must be very rare and special kind of man with LOT OF FREE TIME and TRUE PASSION if you are not just lying or exaggerate your excitement about permadeath in games.

Ok, I see you are really offended )) Almost nobody wants it and you (and other true adepts of permadeath of course) are not one of these average guys. LOL!

Hard for you to Believe, when so many games adopt this concept of Permadeath? Thats your problem then. If you choose to play on permadeath i bet you everyone is aware of the rules and that several replays are needed to master the mode. Thats the fun in it to master it till perfection. Do you understand? Also the level of accomplishment far outweights completing a game in this mode.

You know howe the human brain works. Congrats to the nobel price. Yes true gaming passion on that Point you are right.

Not really offended, just annoyed that you are speaking for people you dont know anything about. By saying Nobody wants it!

[korben dallas]

The point of permadeath, imo, is to give a feeling of real consequence for your actions. In order to enjoy it fully, I recommend getting good at the game on an easier mode first. You don't have to devote yourself to permadeath right from the start, as yes, that would take a really long time (in RL hours) to get anywhere.

I'm just saying it doesn't take a guy fused with his computer to get good at and enjoy permadeath. I'm sure plenty of people feel the same way, yet I would not dare guess as to the "average" viewpoint on this.

As to the OP, there used to more of a point to the different methods of healing. You used to be able to bleed out, and bandages both stopped the bleeding out and slowly healed you. Healing pills were always the ultimate, both instant full heal and poison cure. Not quite sure why the bleeding was dropped, I thought that was really cool and gave a sense of urgency those wounds.

[gribelo]

Kiario, games are getting more easy by day. Permadeath exist only in niche games and 9 times out of 10 its optional thing. It maybe visioned by designer but it contradicts to reality. It maybe cool feature by design and in theory but its not acceptable from the practical point if view.

Thats why forced permadeath was changed to different difficulty in Darkwood in the first place. Because its not acceptable for 9 men out of 10. I would love to play everything with permadeath if I would turn into vampire.

I understand your personal point of view, I like challenges myself, hardcore simulators, wargames and crap, here we are in one boat, but in this topic I say in the name of dumb majority, thats why I say nobody bcz bunch of dedicated elitists are not taken in account. Their opinion is marginal. There was no point in adressing me, you knew what I was trying to say, I was not trying to insult you personally. Nobody but you ))

Better waste your time on another permadeath experience next time.

[gribelo]

Originally posted by korben dallas:

The point of permadeath, imo, is to give a feeling of real consequence for your actions

Of course, but when one plays storydriven game like month and two thirds trough story line dies for some reason... In the best case he will be frustrtated and abandon the game in worst he will kill someoen in real life ))

Those who have bad cognitive skills will be struggling like 20 times trough the same levels will flood forums with annoying crap "buff, nerf, change, add, remove". I think modern game developing theory takes permadeath as something wrong and not-acceptable or strictly marginal and optional.

Its a business, business should be profitable, people do not pay for frustrating and annoying entertainment production, developers go bankrupt. This all really easy to figure out. Thats why its basically safe to say "nobody" in such discussion.

Ok to hell with that crap. Lets play the games! )

P.S To give a feeling of real consequence, game should really kill you. Otherwise its just wastes your time and angers you ))

[korben dallas]

Originally posted by gribelo:

Of course, but when one plays storydriven game like month and two thirds trough story line dies for some reason... In the best case he will be frustrtated and abandon the game in worst he will kill someoen in real life ))

That's why I recommended a play-through on a lesser difficulty first. You get the story and the basic gist of the gameplay mechanics. Then you can go back and permadeath and do as little or much of the story as you want, as little or much scavenging as you want. You can complete the game in as little as a few days in game time which translates to just a few hours of RL time. There are also multiple ways to complete the storylines...so you can do all the extras the first time around and trim the fat when going permadeath.

Originally posted by gribelo:

Its a business, business should be profitable, people do not pay for frustrating and annoying entertainment production...

Frustrating if you try permadeath right off the bat, certainly. Try it my way. It's quite fun, IF you enjoy the game enough in the first place. If you don't enjoy the game, then it comes down to pure personal preference.

Originally posted by gribelo:

... developers go bankrupt.

That's just dramatic.

The real problem here is that you say the game is too easy to survive, but you're not on the hardest difficulty. I consider surviving with one life a REAL challenge.

What's the real complaint here, that healing items heal too much (making it too easy) or permadeath is too hard (making it too hard)?

[gribelo]

Its not really a complaint, I cant demand anything from these guys. Its just my suggestion that healing items are too damn good and this probably a part of bigger problem. Survival component of this game looks half baked. I suppose they planned more content and features but gave up at some point. Well it doesnt matter now bcz its done and its very playable.

Actually Im died once and restarted game myself, after this point I managed not to die for 33 days bcz Im patient, focused and respect the woods. I just wanted to say that permadeath shouldnt be enforced on players, some people just dont have time to replay but they want to go trough the story.

Personally I play games with permadeath myself, but backup saves once in a couple of days, just in case. So I punish myself, but not as hard as intended. ;)

[PizzaSHARK]

Maybe the original plan was to have a much larger health pool or status effects like bleeding. It doesn't really matter, though, since bandages heal slowly enough that it's rare they'll keep you alive if you're taking constant damage from enemies. Only Pills, wells, and a couple of other uncommon effects can heal that rapidly, and they typically don't heal for long. Alcohol bandages heal faster than basic bandages, for what seems to be the same amount of time (more total healing in the same timeframe.)

The wiki is unreliable, so take it with a grain of salt. A lot of it is based off of pre-release alpha builds and not the current 1.1 build, and even more is just speculation.

I think the survival aspect is fine. The game gives you tons and tons of resources, but is designed in such a way that your deaths will typically come quickly, making all those stockpiled resources moot. I don't die because I'm out of materials to repair my weapons or barricades or because my food or water meter runs out, I die because I get cornered by two chompers and can't kill them before they kill me. It's a different sort of survival, but that doesn't mean it doesn't function well.

I do agree that the basic gameplay framework would work really well for a more open world or procedurally generated sort of game. Maybe Acid Wizard can explore that idea more in an expansion or sequel.