Cabin Fever; Why do I Hate Thee?

[Lenny Rat]

So, with over 800 hours in game, I have done a lot of noodling on this.

For those of you that know me, you know that I hate CF. But why? I see a lot of dedicated Loper players, like myself, play run after run with CF as an integral part. So, every few runs, I will give it a try. Without fail, I will quit after 50 to 100 days; it is just no longer fun for me. Why?

To begin with, my argument against CF has always been the break of immersion. My argument:

You spend 15-20 days scrounging for just enough food and clothing to stave off starvation and hypothermia…
You finally kill a few bunnies for a few guts and hides…
You get to a workbench and get a chance to craft them…
A blinding blizzard hits…
And the game says I need to go “spend some time outside”. WTF?

Ok, so that is my basic complaint, but I think I finally understand what drives me to quit; it is because I literally spend MORE time worrying about WHEN CF will hit than WHERE my next meal will come from.

I’m sorry; but that makes ZERO sense in a survival game.

This game is one of a select few that still delivers a challenge; still delivers the occasional adrenaline rush, and still surprises me. I love planning for a hunt; planning to check out a new region; the rush of adrenaline when an unexpected predator appears; the satisfaction of opening another container just to find it empty (well, ok, maybe not that one); and the enjoyment of a full belly by the fire after risking hypo to get the kill. But constantly worrying about when CF will hit is a totally unrealistic stressor that a survivor would not have.

Frankly, in every custom game that I have played WITHOUT CF, do you know what eventually kills me? I go and do something stupid because I’m bored and need to get out and do something new…isn’t that pretty much CF in a nutshell? Without the computer forcing it on me based upon a poorly implemented averaging formula?

In order for it to make any sense at all, CF needs to be seriously tweaked. For one; it should NEVER need to be acted upon in the middle of a blinding storm. Forcing a player to make decisions that are 100% contrary to survival says that the player has already lost it and gone insane.

Game over, man, game over!

[Kirkis]

" I go and do something stupid because I’m bored and need to get out and do something new…isn’t that pretty much CF in a nutshell? Without the computer forcing it on me based upon a poorly implemented averaging formula?"

-OP

Hi, I'll make this quick. So basically given what you have said the end result is essentially the same whether Cabin Fever exist as you would eventually get bored and go out anyways. Now to the main issue at hand... you are obviously playing Interloper wrong. As it stands the game doesn't have much content; hopefully that will be remedied soon with the restructuring of the Hinterland team. Now with that said... if you want to last past 100+ days you must never grow bored and keep yourself motivated by.... TRAVELING.

That's right... TRAVELING. Traveling will solve all your problems. Goodbye boring and goodbye Cabin Fever. Try it, and quit your pointless hibernating game.

Edit: Also.... caves are your best friend. If not caves, try cars/shelter (with B. Bedroll). Always keep any of these handy!

[Kirkis]

Originally posted by belthize:

I pretty much agree. In my opinion CF was a bad solution to a real problem.

In the context of loper, after day 60 or so (varies from person to person) you're basically kitted out and settling in. Because of the L5, I can now eat anything, effect food is no longer a problem so you basically could just hump up and hibernate so to fix this they added cabin fever as if it actually increased risk in the late game. CF doesn't add to the late game risk it's just an annoying, hop on one leg, jump through hoop thing you need to do and then you can ignore it again.

A much more interesting solution would have been to force the player to go out hunting more.

As I said when they first implemented it I wish they'd simply gotten rid of the L5 eat bad meat effect, fixed snow shelters so they were removable when ruined and changed the cloth calculation a bit for them a bit. This would have made people travel more, increased exposure and animal attack risk without the annoyance that is CF.

As is the penalty and cost of snow shelters means they're not used all that much out in the wild, they're frequently back yard play forts to combat CF. No risk, just a gimmick. Making it so you had to go out on hunting expeditions, find a good sheltered spot for a shelter and then hunt/harvest game in a protected way before returning with the meat to some base would have been much more challenging/entertaining.

Many fair points here for sure!

[Nil Desperandum]

Originally posted by belthize:

This is how I prefer to live in late game loper but the nature of shelters limits the number of viable locations (this is the lake below the MT farm):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt4fn6wNrEo

Why the snow shelter, there is a cave right there?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1540434674

Be Lucky!

[Nil Desperandum]

Ahhh! I see!

[I'll be the one]

Originally posted by Lenny Rat:

So, with over 800 hours in game, I have done a lot of noodling on this.

For those of you that know me, you know that I hate CF. But why? I see a lot of dedicated Loper players, like myself, play run after run with CF as an integral part. So, every few runs, I will give it a try. Without fail, I will quit after 50 to 100 days; it is just no longer fun for me. Why?

To begin with, my argument against CF has always been the break of immersion. My argument:

You spend 15-20 days scrounging for just enough food and clothing to stave off starvation and hypothermia…
You finally kill a few bunnies for a few guts and hides…
You get to a workbench and get a chance to craft them…
A blinding blizzard hits…
And the game says I need to go “spend some time outside”. WTF?

Ok, so that is my basic complaint, but I think I finally understand what drives me to quit; it is because I literally spend MORE time worrying about WHEN CF will hit than WHERE my next meal will come from.

I’m sorry; but that makes ZERO sense in a survival game.

This game is one of a select few that still delivers a challenge; still delivers the occasional adrenaline rush, and still surprises me. I love planning for a hunt; planning to check out a new region; the rush of adrenaline when an unexpected predator appears; the satisfaction of opening another container just to find it empty (well, ok, maybe not that one); and the enjoyment of a full belly by the fire after risking hypo to get the kill. But constantly worrying about when CF will hit is a totally unrealistic stressor that a survivor would not have.

Frankly, in every custom game that I have played WITHOUT CF, do you know what eventually kills me? I go and do something stupid because I’m bored and need to get out and do something new…isn’t that pretty much CF in a nutshell? Without the computer forcing it on me based upon a poorly implemented averaging formula?

In order for it to make any sense at all, CF needs to be seriously tweaked. For one; it should NEVER need to be acted upon in the middle of a blinding storm. Forcing a player to make decisions that are 100% contrary to survival says that the player has already lost it and gone insane.

Game over, man, game over!

Agreed, How often do you sleep "outside"? I make a habit of sleeping in a cave or hut every other day or just before I do a lot of crafting. Over 1300 hours and I have only gotten CF twice.

[Lenny Rat]

Originally posted by JayXL:

I always understood CF as a mechanic the devs added back when we had leaderboards, which was before my time. I guess people would just camp out to max their days survived, and it was ruining the competition of the leaderboards, so they added it to force players out of perma-camping.

The mechanic doesn't suit today's needs, and it just serves as more of an irritant than anything. Since the leaderboards are gone now, it would only make sense to revisit the CF mechanic. Some kind of adjustment would be welcome, say lengthening the time for CF to develop, stoping it from developing during crafting or reading, or any number of adjustments that have been mentioned in the past.

Maybe simply not having it initiate during blizzards! I agree with LennyRat, it's odd that the game would force you out during a raging blizzard because you just need to get a little air. If I was to get CF in real life, I think I would wait until it's clear out so I could sit around a campfire and enjoy the outside without having to worry about dying.

Agreed. It should not even develop until you are past 100 days. Activities that occupy the player, like crafting and reading, should interrupt any increase to the CF risk. And to have CF risk increase during sleep is simply silly (am I dreaming that I can't stand it in this cabin?).

Good points.

[EN16M471C]

Originally posted by micah6vs8:

That being said it's been forever since I've had it. It's rare for me to even get a CF risk. I just default to caves/firebarrels, ect. as habitat. It is easy to avoid.

I'm doing it kinda the same. I always make sure I have a stockpile of firewood and do all of my cooking outside not just to mitigate CF risk but because fire lasts longer outside by default. I do decent amount of fishing too. I'll sleep outside or in a cave rather than inside.

But yeah, I agree that CF is basically an ancient game mechanic, a relic of the past and should be redesigned to meet current game mechanics.

[Axz]

Cabin fever is in dire need of addressing, the salt in the wound is that it was originally put in soley as a way of stopping people setting crazy highscores on the leaderboards.

...

Spot the deliberate mistake.


I wouldn't mind if it was addressed rather than removed, it would work well in the games settings, but it would need to be fair and balanced, as it is it just doesn't make sense. I won't go into it big time as I've done that plenty before, but even I can't resist a quickie...

1) If you collect 14 days worth of food and water then *that* is the challenge and 14 days of safety is the reward. You should not punish players for making full use of their safety and not taking unnecessary risks in a survival game.

2) It takes *NOTHING* else into consideration. If you have frostbite or hypothermia you should never be forced outside by cabin fever. It's choosing a horrible death over sleeping inside because you've been inside "too long" (less than a week). It's completely insane.

3) Now that the leaderboard is gone (and has been for quite a long time now), why not rebalance it? It's a solution to a problem that no longer exists, I think that's enough of a reason to at least think about it.

EDIT: Screw it, I'm going to continue.

4) "Inside" doesn't always mean inside. Cave passages and icecave networks count as inside and so do buildings that don't have a loading screen like the mountaineering hut.

5) Half of cabin fevers penalties are redundant, with cabin fever you can't sleep or wait while "inside", but you can still perform any time consuming action and cancel before completion, rinse and repeat to wait "inside" as long as needed.

6) Cabin fever shouldn't be fatal to ignore (even though it should be highly unadvisable to do so), crazy people don't just die, not even slowly. You won't always be able to go outside and it won't always be your fault, cabin fever should be hugely hindering, not potentially fatal, there is a big difference between the two.

Just my 2 cents, again.

[Bumbling Bea]

Would it work if they used "passing time" in any enclosed area, rather than time spent indoors?

[Lenny Rat]

Originally posted by Tekel1959:

CF is one of the two reasons I logged so many custom hours instead of loper. It is stupid and immersion breaking. The other one is gaming starvation so you can thrive on 600 calories a day.

/shrug

And that is another primary issue; being forced to run "custom" stops progress on feats and does not register anything whatsoever in the "all-time" column of the statistics page. There is no column for "custom". So if I play several custom 500 day runs on Loper, with only CF turned off, I cannot log, or track, my performance.

Not right, Hinterland...

[Lenny Rat]

Originally posted by Axz:

Cabin fever is in dire need of addressing, the salt in the wound is that it was originally put in soley as a way of stopping people setting crazy highscores on the leaderboards.

...

Spot the deliberate mistake.


I wouldn't mind if it was addressed rather than removed, it would work well in the games settings, but it would need to be fair and balanced, as it is it just doesn't make sense. I won't go into it big time as I've done that plenty before, but even I can't resist a quickie...

1) If you collect 14 days worth of food and water then *that* is the challenge and 14 days of safety is the reward. You should not punish players for making full use of their safety and not taking unnecessary risks in a survival game.

2) It takes *NOTHING* else into consideration. If you have frostbite or hypothermia you should never be forced outside by cabin fever. It's choosing a horrible death over sleeping inside because you've been inside "too long" (less than a week). It's completely insane.

3) Now that the leaderboard is gone (and has been for quite a long time now), why not rebalance it? It's a solution to a problem that no longer exists, I think that's enough of a reason to at least think about it.

EDIT: Screw it, I'm going to continue.

4) "Inside" doesn't always mean inside. Cave passages and icecave networks count as inside and so do buildings that don't have a loading screen like the mountaineering hut.

5) Half of cabin fevers penalties are redundant, with cabin fever you can't sleep or wait while "inside", but you can still perform any time consuming action and cancel before completion, rinse and repeat to wait "inside" as long as needed.

6) Cabin fever shouldn't be fatal to ignore (even though it should be highly unadvisable to do so), crazy people don't just die, not even slowly. You won't always be able to go outside and it won't always be your fault, cabin fever should be hugely hindering, not potentially fatal, there is a big difference between the two.

Just my 2 cents, again.

All good comments...once this thread gets exhausted I'll re-post excerpts into the Wish List...again.

[marbanno]

Love the post and solid argument.

To play devil's advocate, could CF force those paralyzed with fear to face the cold bitter torture?

[canis39]

+1 for Hinterland re-examining -- and then modifying, or removing -- cabin fever.

As has been stated, it was an attempt at a solution to a real problem, but it was always a poor fit in the game, and the problem no longer exists.

[mf187doubleg]

Originally posted by belthize:

This is how I prefer to live in late game loper but the nature of shelters limits the number of viable locations (this is the lake below the MT farm):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt4fn6wNrEo

What I'd really love to see is a snow shelter that used deer, bear or wolf hide that had a base recipe that provided a standard temp gain and then allowed for adding additional hides up to a limit. So maybe +5C for a single deer hide + 10 sticks and 2 cedar log up, then you can add up to 2 deer hides for +10 and +15 and up to 3 wolf hides for +20, 25 and 30 and up to one bear hide for +35 and one moose skin for +40.

This, coupled with spoiled meat, would encourage players to hunt where there are multi-deer spawns and set up camps.

The other thing I've been playing with is setting bears and wolves to timid, it makes them much harder to hunt. I think changing their AI so they stalk you if you have food and run if you don't would be good because they're zero risk in that timid setting.

That is a cool idea! Pls Hinterland implement this! :) I also think that snowshelters could be used more on interloper but now they are a bit useless even when you have full gear. It is fun to choose your spot to camp in the wild and admire sunsets. That would also require from player to use his hides but in return we would get a "small" base in areas that usually we avoid. That would be a great addition to the game!

[markwars]

In over 3000 hours across three platforms I have never gotten Cabin Fever. Not even once. You might initially think that I would be in the camp that says, "just adjust and deal with it", but I am certainly not.

Like the OP I think I spend more time thinking about CF than any other affliction. Every time I harvest or repair anything I do it outside. Every book I read is read outside. All of my meat harvesting from quarters is done outside. Even if that means timing things to yo-yo my temp over and over and over again. My game mind has become one of constant vigilance against CF. In fact most of my runs that go beyond day 300 I tend to spend between 60 to 70 percent of it outside based on my journals and often I don't ever even get a warning for it.

This however is not realistic. It also limits what I would do in a real survival situation. I wish they would change it.

If I had to assume what Hinterland's stance on this is it would be to tell us to use custom...but as has been stated this isn't really fair without stored journal info for custom games. I play a LOT of custom and to me this doesn't seem fair at all.