Steep learning curve for Magnifying Glass

[SoMeOnE_the_oDD]

Being that it's equally unfair to degrade the magnifying glass as it is to allow it as a permanent solution to fire making, could it simply be solved by making them incredibly inconvenient? If they started out with a 10% success rate and could only be gotten to 30% independently of the statistic tracking standard fire making, all the while taking the longest of any method to light, would they be fair again?

If we're going to use it, we should have to pay for it. At it's best, it should be passable. At its worst it should be obnoxiously inconsistent. Being outside, you'd be forced to freeze half to death, slowly burn through your energy, lose daylight, and possibly miss the sun entirely.

[deunan_of_rubika]

Have you ever used a magnifying glass to start a fire in real life? Under proper sunlight, it's remarkably consistent and easy to do so.

There is nothing unfair about the use of the magnifying glass. There are already conditional limits on the magnifying glass as a fire starter. It requires direct sunlight, which more often than not is not available and only possible for less than half of the day. That also means that it can only be used outside which in turn means that it must be wind shielded.

Campfires are unreliable for long term use even with a wind shield as the wind direction can shift to turn the fire into a windblown fire. As a practical matter that means the conservative approach is to only use the magnifying glass to start a fire to transfer a torch to a protected fire place which means it also requires giving up an additional 20 minutes of burn time every time you use it to make a fire for long term use.

There are literally no other fire starters in the game that have all these limitations on them. It doesn't need re-balancing but it's certainly probable, given that they have a condition state, that the condition of the magnifying glass may be given meaning at some point, just as the condition of the storm lantern might be given relevance at some point.

[Ridan Krad]

Originally posted by deunan_of_rubika:

...which means it also requires giving up an additional 20 minutes of burn time every time you use it to make a fire for long term use.

I agree with your overall point, but just wanted to point out that you don't have to do this. Just keep one torch in your inventory ahead of time, light a fire with one stick and one tinder, and then immediately light the torch using the 2-3 minute fire so you can then transfer the fire inside. Saves on resources. :)

[SoMeOnE_the_oDD]

This was a response to requests I've seen to make the magnifying glass degrade. That was what I thought was unfair so I suggested simply making them harder to learn.

No, I have never started a fire with a magnifying glass. I don't know if that's really something everyone else in the world but me has done and mastered but if so, my apologies for assuming there was any skill or experience involved. I imagined a randomly selected person might be at least mildly unprepared for life under these circumstances and thus find things difficult.

I can start a fire, personally, with matches. Most everything else beyond that I'm almost entirely unproven with. I would like my character to be as clueless as I am so that it's more meaningful to overcome the challenges presented by this game.

A possible way to interpret the condition of the magnifying glass would be the clarity of its lens. I don't know how you might go about keeping a lens clear of scratches but you could probably degrade it based on the time it spends in your pack. Even if you scuffed it all up, I'm fairly sure melting some snow onto its surface would clear it up by filling in the scratches.

[deunan_of_rubika]

I could show you how to use a magnifying glass to start a fire in just a few minutes. It's not a sophisticated skill. Kids often do it to amuse themselves.

I remember one time this guy tried to demonstrate how to use one to start a campfire by taking an annoyingly long time to get an ember burning and place it inside a tinder nest. I told him or you could simply do this, and proceeded to use the magnifying glass to light the tinder nest on fire in less than a minute. He literally facepalmed himself after that.

[Frigidman]

I melted ants, and burned newspapers like the rest of them while I was kid.

The mag glass is fine how it is, there are so many limits so far which make it one of those tools that 'when everything aligns, YAY! I can use it right now!'. But to throw on RNG and other factors? guh, please no.