The value of bandages

[Hyomoto]

I understand the difficulty of the game, but I still feel that bandages are simply too valuable of an item. They could easily be reduced by 25% and maintain their scarcity an value.

An explanation: bandages are a single point of failure. While most things have alternatives; beds vs. the floor, canned vs. prepared food, medicine has both 'cheap' and 'expensive' versions, bandages only come in the one variety. Because of this, you feel like you are just watching people bleed to death because you have no options to help them without one very expensive and rare item.

This is compounded by how expensive 'pure alcohol' is to craft, or even get TO crafting, so the fact that its so expensive to barter for is just ridiculous. It seems odd to make it incredibly expensive to make AND to barter for. The trader will accept nothing less than an assault rifle for a SINGLE BANDAGE. One. Not a box. It seems to me that bandages should barter for less but be expensive to make. That makes sense, it's hard to produce yourself, but easy to get from someone else.

Just to touch on this, yes, there is the hospital but since it costs your night of scavanging and doesn't fully heal you, and isn't available to anyone who really needs it, its not quite the same alternative to sleeping on the floor versus building a bed.

[Crim]

It is a little weird and annoying that Bandages require pure alcohol which requires Rank 3 workshop, while the place to make bandages is merely the rank 2.

I would suggest introducing a new low level bandages made with Moonshine in the rank 1 herbal workshop

Move true bandages to rank 2 of herbal workshop since Bandages are also probably the most cost effecient money craft.

[DoctorDetroit]

It adds to the frightening realism of the game. It only makes sense that the most difficult item to acquire is very expensive. Supply vs. Demand. That's capitalism for you.

[Hyomoto]

I'm not sure it's even worth responding to you directly, Giuseppe. Bandages are cloth. You can treat bleeding with pressure. Bandages aren't some magic healing aid, they are simply designed to apply pressure and keep dressings in place. While characters can recover from illness while resting, I've never seen anyone's wounds get better regardless of their level of activity. Once again you have NO ALTERNATIVES. I'm prevented from using basic first aid because civilians are too stupid? That's 'frightening realism' alright, so hardcore.

You might as well insist only one person going scavanging at night is realistic. It's not, this is a game. These are game mechanics that restrict your actions to promote the difficulty the designers wanted. In most cases they done well, bandages however are too expensive. That's the scope of my argument, that they are too expensive because they are rare, incredibly expensive to manufacture, the most expensive item to trade for, have no alternatives and require multiple applications of to be effective.

[Northern Fox]

I agree, Bandages are way to expensive, one of the reasons why I have to kill everyone in the Military outpost is becuse i need the bandages so badly. Also they rarly work for me oddly anufe. Also from my exprence with medical items, Bandages should not be that hard to make anyway, Moonshine should be perfect to make bandages, any form of alcohol should work. Simply cloth should be perfect to make cheap bandages. I love this game for all its worth and realism but the bandage thing kinda pushes it way to much becuse that is one of the few things not real. if your bleeding your going to use a rag, jacket, any form of cloth to stop the bleeding even if you dont have "medical bandages". Also the idea that you need so many bandages to cure someone and half the time a raid makes you waste it becuse they get worse anyway during a raid, it just nearly brakes the game becuse its just to hard to keep them alive when they are wounded.

[Hyomoto]

Right, dnrob7. You quoted my post without clicking the button. You know what I love about the internet? People like you can talk with people like me. You know absolutely nothing, the length of your knowledge barely extends beyond, "I like Pop-Tarts". Yet your comment is allowed to exist right next to mine. I described why I think they are too expensive and considered alternatives. That's called having a thoughtful opinion.

Yours is not. Yours is a waste of time dnrob7.

[Little Big Toe]

What I love about the Internet this people trying to demean others when their opinion is disregarded. And calling someone a kid because they got their feeling hurt shows the age of that person. Seems that happens way too often here on these forums.

But ... back on topic.

I'd advise you to turn the tables around and use bandages as your source of trade value. They're not that hard to produce and coincide with making your shelter safe against bandits. In fact, the making of bandages should be a priority in everyone's game as they're so valuable. I'd include meds in this too.

You need the advanced workshop for the alarmed door after you patch up the holes in the walls anyway. The herbal workshop, moonshine still, and alcohol still can all be built in about 20 days.

Never, ever trade away materials except for perhaps pure alcohol when needed. Trust me you'll need all you can get of the electrical, gears, components, wood, weapon parts, sugar, and water. It goes without saying herbs and fertilizer should also never be traded away.

[phreazerburn]

Agree about bandages. The obvious solution is to simply have a lower tier option. It also is more realistic. Yes, keep the sterile, medical-grade bandage that is currently in the game. However, give us the option of making a simple cloth wrap that only works on "wounded" or "slightly wounded" and has a chance to do nothing...an exact equivalent to herbal medicine.

Obvious fix to an obvious omission.

[Hyomoto]

I am reminded of why I never bother posting on the Steam forums and "why it happens so much on these forums", EdJaws. There are no standards of decency or quality; you might be polite but your response is I'M an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ for calling someone out for being one. People who want to have an actual discussion are not having them here. For the record, I never called dnrob7 a child and especially not for disagreeing with me. If you cannot tell the difference, you are just as much a part of the problem as he is, regardless of being more pleasant about it.

I appreciate you taking the time to have a more polite response but in the future, if you want the Steam forums to be better, stop being so passive. Say, "Be polite to each other you two." instead of, "Why are people so mean here?" Take a stand, represent quality, demand corteousy or accept that the reason no one has any is because you keep expecting everyone else to do it for you.

The discussion is dead. We all killed it, I apologize for bringing it up.

[Leo3ABP]

Currently bandages are a "magical healing item" of the game - apply them and spend day in bed, and your condition will improve. With enough bandages you can "heal up" even mortally wounded character, provided you have enough of them. It is clearly a designers choice to make bandages scarce to encourage players to not get hurt which also means not to take unnessesary risks like fighting other characters head on, because even if you win the fight, your character might end up dying from his/her wounds. Make bandages more availible and it will ruin a fragile atmosphere of fear and taking player out of his comfort zone.
I think ppl that ask for stuff like bigger backpacks, more controllable (i.e. predictable) combat, better item availability etc dont understand that by making so they will actually make game less interesting. This game is interesting not because of abudance of resourses, locations, options etc, but because of scarcity of them, forcing player to make meaningful choices in the process, coz normally one simply cant "have it all" at the same time. Change that and the game will become uninteresting and outright boring.

[Jaiden]

I honestly can't believe that there's an argument over bandages.

Guys, this is a game, not real life. As much as most of you want to believe "Oh, it's based on a real war, oh god its so realistic because I'm not a CoD soldier", it isn't. This is still a game, a game from a different perspective and style, but still a game. This does not pretend to be realistic in any way, because if it was there would be so many factors that need to be included, which I'm not going to go into.

Long story short, bandages are the high-qual healing item next to pills. IMO there should be a low-grade alternative to bandages like the pills, but there isn't. So that means you gotta' deal with it.

[MIAO]

In real life,,,,,,,,,You can even re use bandit just after you clean it with hot water.

[Arrrtyom]

Agreed, it would be good to have a cheaper version of bandages, like how medication is divided into herbal meds and the pills.

Also I think the chance of recovery for slightly sick and slightly wounded need to be increased in bed, as long as they're not extremely hungry and stuff. Humans do have immune systems.

[Little Big Toe]

Got to agree with dnrob.

There's hardly a need for bandages in the beginning of the game as long as you don't go berserk trying to kill and rob everyone. By the time the crime wave comes along you should have a boarded up shelter, weapons, and be rolling in bandages.

Originally posted by dnrob7:

Anywho. I just don't see why anyone would want to make this game easier. The herbals already make sickness a total fairytale and now people want to do away with getting injured too?
Lame.

[BigDaddy Spin]

I've found bandages are pretty easy to come by. Maybe I'm just lucky with RNG, but there are a few spots where you can manage to get bandages if you bring lock picks and saws. I usually end up trading most of my bandages away, but I also having been trying to do a No Kill/ No Steal run through.

Sniper Junction has a bunch of bandages, usually the starting house, the school and a few of the other places.

I think the bandages are limited (or not there) to discourage players from just going in and murdering the crap out of everyone in each location.

[Kignkrieg]

My idea is that there could be a cheaper version of bandages, that could be made by a random form of alcohol and not by pure alcohol. But there should be a 45% of healing your wounds 40% not do anything and 15% of making your wounds worse and giving you fever.