Dog can't keep items without me dying first?

[Toma]

I spent hours collecting gear for a good start. I finally got all tens for the raft stuff, I got 5 jars, 5 pelts for pouches, and 10 stitching kits. I was finally ready, so I restarted the game without dying, and I LOST EVERYHING.

No one told me that you lose everything if you don't die first. What the hell? I read guides. That's how I figured out that stuff Asop keeps stuff to begin with. Why do I lose everything just because I started a new game instead of dying first? Once I got everything, I wanted to restart, and thought it was dumb to diliberately kill myself first.

I'm really mad. I spent over 10 hours getting raft stuff, just for this, and I'm right back where I started. Why did no one tell me this in ANY OF THE STUFF I READ???

[Goblin Girl]

Oh no! I've been playing endless for a really long time now. I was hoping to get the last 2 quests completed before restarting my game, but not sure they're going to pop. I keep waiting for some official word on whether or not a person can get the 10 corn quest. I was actually thinking of just restarting as well, since Scout has now survived 2 years on the river. This is really disappointing. I guess I'm glad to now know that you can't just quit, but I agree with you. This is really sad, especially after all that work you put in. Is it possible to back up a game before re-starting?

[Toma]

I said why I restarted in my original post.

I got the max amount of items I could fit into my dog's inventory. Why would I keep playing after that point? Goblin Girl said that she was thinking of just starting a new game because she was tired of playing with her endless campaign.

Someone might also decide to just start a new game if his character got crippled. I almost did that a couple of times, like when my character got crippled. I was still working out what sort of items I wanted to keep in the dog though, so I tried to drag myself back to the raft first but I died anyway. Sometimes my raft was super injured that I knew that I wasn't going to get much further, but those times, I ended up just destroying the raft. I could have just as easily done a restart instead though.

Are you saying that you've never diliberately killed your character at some point? Cause the difference between doing that, and just restarting, is minimal.

I was also intending to do as many playthroughs as I needed in order to make sure I got the raft upgrade station in the first area. I was planning on restarting my game if I didn't, because I wanted to have the upgraded raft from the start.

There is literally only one save. If you start a new game, you can't just get the stuff from something else. What possible reason is there to not keep items from your previous game, just because you didn't die?

[Toma]

There sure are a lot of PLAYERS that suggested to hoard everything to help the next game though. I read guides that suggested it, I read tip lists that suggested it, I've read it in reviews... It's a pretty standered suggestion I got from reading about this game, and, funny, not ONCE did anyone bother to mention that if you want to restart a game before you die, you don't get to keep that stuff. Kind of an important detail to miss.

You realize Endless doesn't have the feature either right? You saying it would be fine to restart with my stuff if I was playing endless instead? That seems like a needless complication. Once the developers decide that it's okay to pass stuff over after death, why wouldn't it be also okay if you just restart a new game? If there were multiple player accounts, then that wouldn't make sense, but there is only the one, and when you just have the one, it makes a lot of sense.

It's not even one account in the sense that dying has some sense of continuity, like the Rogue Legacy, where you start the game over but as a decendant of the original character. For a game like that, new game would mean starting from characteer one. However, the only way to play a new game in Flame and the Flood is to <i>start a new game</i>. Normally, starting a new game simply means starting a new game but here the thing is muddled because even though you start a new game, you still can keep supplies from the old one. The setup is compltely misleading, and bad game design. Either commit to keeping the dog's inventory inbetween playthroughs, or remove it.

Look, I get you are some sort of super hard core guy that probably hates that there is even an option to checkmark your progress so that you don't lose everything, but this game has a traveler mode, in addition to hard mode, that is built towards more casual players (me) as well, and a casual player is absolutely going to try and use the dog bag to give them a leg up because this is part of the game.

I'm not trying to superseed the gameplay, I'm just looking at the mechanics and taking the concept of "the contents of the dog's inventory remains constant through playthroughs" to the logical conclusion. A player that is doing that stuff is also likely to just quit a game occasionaly if it's not going well, so this is a valid concern. You don't have to agree with the stance to understand it, and I would appreciate you not talking down to me.

[Goblin Girl]

During my recent playthrough, my Scout had a very interesting conversation with Cocteau, the gravedigger. She asked him his thoughts on death and beyond. I don't remember his exact words, but I did find it interesting that he mentioned reincarnation and that Aesop had a way of helping with that through holding things for the next survivor. Maybe someone else can find the wording, but I thought it was worth mentioning that the developers did make the carryover of inventory part of the story. Keeping that in mind, I can see why it might make sense for Aesop to only have the items of someone that has died, instead of a survivor that just fades to black, so to speak. But I'd also like to add that using this extra inventory is not only a strategy, but one that is encouraged by the developers.

All that being said, I think that as a player, we should be told via the game itself that inventory won't be carried over if you just restart. I think that's only fair. Like what if a person dies during endless and then wants to try and play the storyline again? Will Aesop keep the items? I'm about to hit 1000 miles in endless mode. I really can't do much more with this particular playthrough. I want to try and get a few more achievements, which means I will have to start over... one way or another. Personally, I'd love if I didn't have to kill Scout after doing so well. So as a person about to end their endless playthrough but still wants to complete all the achievements, I definitely want to know how best to handle the transition from one playthrough to another. I don't think it would take much to add some sort of warning or explanation to the start sceen before a person decides to play the game again.

[Toma]

The devs mention it too? I never noticed that, although it's not surprising that they did. Feels odd that Aesop's trick is something a new player wouldn't realize until their next playthrough and that they would have to piece it together themselves. Also interesting that they do include this as a story element, although I feel they could have done a bit more lore than keeping it limited to a single short conversation. Story elements seem a bit lacking. Meeting people seems really rare and they don't do anything. When I first saw one, I thought he might help keep the wildlife away but he just stood there while I ran all around.

Hey, Goblin Girl, what items would you want to carry along for the new playthrough, if/when you do so? Rafting upgrades is probably obvious but what about the other three slots? High end clothing perhaps?

Also, what does the game look like at 1000 miles? I heard that it gets a lot harder to play the futher you go down. I think it is supposed to stop raining and everything dries out?

[Goblin Girl]

Hey Toma,
I just happened to find a great photo-op right around 1000 miles. Not sure if we are allowed to add screenshots here or even if it will show up, but I thought I'd give it a try.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1087021168

The items I want to carry on to the next playthrough is still a question I keep asking myself. Throughout my 1000 miles I have collected and kept the same 6 items. The first 3 slots were full stacks of the raft schematics, raft frames and raft parts. The 4th slot is an extra white wolf jacket. I managed to kill 2 along my journeys, so it seems like a must have for any Aesop bag. The 5th and 6th have been for a stack of stitching kits and a stack of jerky, but I'm not totally sold that this is the ultimate care package for the next adventure.

I have 3 achievements left: Paleo, Vegetarian and Animal Friend. These will have to be done with 3 separate new games, although I'm curious if I can get Vegetarian and Paleo together. According to the description of Vegetarian (at least for the PC) it says that we can't kill any animals for the first 20 days. I'm curious if I just eat jerky but not kill anything for those first 20 days if I can get vegetarian. I also have 6 full stacks of grubs. I wish I knew if these could count for Vegetarian or not. I will probably keep Aesop's bag as I described, but I am tempted to throw out my rafting stuff and add stacks of food instead, since that's more important.

As for what I saw my last 500 miles or so, you still get 4 different biomes: Desolate Wasteland, Shops, Wilderness and Industrial. Each biome came with a different weather pattern. It rarely rained during my time in the wastelands, but most of the shop biomes it would never stop raining. I've read about others not being able to make it far because the marinas stopped showing up. Fortunately for me, this was never the case and they were frequent enough to always keep my raft in top shape (Thank you Developers for updating this!). Nuts and bolts, wood and raft repair kits were pretty easy to keep stocked as well. The items you'll pretty much stop seeing, however, are anything you can pick off the ground. Dandelions, cattails, devil's trumpet, sumac, yucca, saplings, aloe, and even rabbits started to dwindle. They will eventually dry up. I used to live for more devil's trumpet to keep the wolves at bay, but at some point I had to adapt and find other creative methods for meat. Sadly, I was never able to complete 2 of the in game-quests because of lack of resources, but I think 1000 miles is enough.

I hope all this isn't derailing your thread, since I think it was important for you to point out. Maybe I should write up a guide or something if enough people are interested. Thanks for asking though!

[Toma]

I don't THINK it's derailing the thread. I've said everything I wanted, and it doesn't look like people really want to discuss it. Honestly, the fact that a thread like this hasn't popped up before, even though the game is a year old, says a lot what a non-issue most people seem to think this is in the first place. I'd rather talk about your impressive playthrough than arguing.

I could move the conversation to pm, if you think it's best to not talk in the forum though. Actually, how do I pm someone? *googles* Oh, I need to actually friend the person. Huh. Guess it would be a bit presumptuous to just do that then.

Anyway, your 1000 miles screenshot is not a very happy one. I think she wants to die at this point. Just how many times can she put herself though this?

While I'm not an expert player, wouldn't it be better to gather bear hides? *checks wikia* Oh, you need a ton of stuff to make bear clothing. Leather kit, cloth kit and steel knife. I think I read you can't put a steel knife in the inventory either? Maybe it would be helpful when you get enough stuff though?

I originally started stacking up on jerky too, but then I thought that rabbit hide was better so that I could make some pouches first thing. Taking empty jars would mean that you could get plenty of gas and go for the moter option first thing, if that is useful? I read that all you need is the rudder, so I'm not sure how good an upgrade that is.

You seriously can't make traps anymore though? The only other way I know of besides tainted meat and traps is making the animals fight each other. On top of that most food items seem to be dissapearing. That's really harsh.

[Goblin Girl]

It is a shame that there aren't many discussions going on, since I really do like this game. I wouldn't mind if you wanted to friend me and pm me, although it's threads like this that may help other people like ourselves, so there's that.

The screenshot I took does look like the end, doesn't it? The truth is, however, that the bear got stuck on the tree so both he and the wolves were kind of stuck and unable to move! Since I was relatively safe, I thought it was too great an opportunity to pass up. I took the screenshot and then went back to my raft for a nap. That seems to help reset those sorts of mishaps.

The animals killing each other seems to really be the way to go when traps and tainted meat are no longer an option. Snakes are a pain but can also be very useful. Takes 2 snakes for a boar, 3 for a wolf and 4 for a bear. Yes, you can actually kill a bear with snakes but takes a bit of finesse.

Bear hides are the best, except for the white wolf jacket. That is the best of the best. The jacket gives you a chance to not feel an attack from another creature. It's even saved me from numerous snakebites, so get one or 2 if you can.

Thank you again for your kind words and interest! Like I said, I really wish more people were interested in this discussion since it's fun to talk about. Regardless, keep the questions coming if you have more. I hope you've started to collect more resources again. What is your next goal for this game?

[ElPrezCBF]

My guess why there aren't many discussions here is because this game is not so much about strategy as much as about simulation and reacting to random event generations. This makes for low replayability though I don't fault the game on that per se because of the survival genre's nature.

[Goblin Girl]

Perhaps you're right but I keep seeming to replay this game over and over.

I still have 3 achievements to complete and I've never really been one to care about achievements much. I do with this game, I think, because I want to have an excuse to keep playing it. I wish I could put my finger on it. Maybe it's the music, maybe it's the art. Maybe it's because it's different from most of everything I've played up until now. I suppose once I'm done with the achievements I'll set it aside and try for something else, but the game is definitely replayable to me. I'd like to think that although some may not agree, there's still a few that do. I'm glad that you wanted to join the discussion though. Perspective is always nice.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Goblin Girl:

Perhaps you're right but I keep seeming to replay this game over and over.

I still have 3 achievements to complete and I've never really been one to care about achievements much. I do with this game, I think, because I want to have an excuse to keep playing it. I wish I could put my finger on it. Maybe it's the music, maybe it's the art. Maybe it's because it's different from most of everything I've played up until now. I suppose once I'm done with the achievements I'll set it aside and try for something else, but the game is definitely replayable to me. I'd like to think that although some may not agree, there's still a few that do. I'm glad that you wanted to join the discussion though. Perspective is always nice.

I absolutely agree with your view that it's replayable if you want to get all the achievements. My perspective is that the means to achieve them is still the same once you're familiar with all the mechanics. But I hope you have lots of fun!

[Toma]

Since Endless and story mode work the same way, in that you need to die to get Aesop's bag transfered, I fail to see why you need to diferenticate between the two. I didn't have any intention of winning the game in the earlier playthroughs. My goal was to get a good selection of stuff before starting on the game that I was going to try and win with. Ergo, I was treating is as an endless play, regardless of whether or not it was on that mode. The only reason it wasn't on endless is because I didn't care enough to bother making the extra click.

Anyway, Goblin Girl, I'm not really playing the game right now, so I got no current plans. But if/when I do start again, I would do the same thing, do playthroughs to get good gear and then do a story mode with a good start. This game I bought on the Steam Sale, and there are a few others I got at the same time to play.

I had a question on the raft upgrade. How well does the motor work? Does it work on rapids? I read that just having the rudder is enough, but I feel that a motor would work well, especially if I am keeping a stack of jars to fill with gas. Also, how many hours did it take to get 1,000 miles? I see you've played a little over 200 hours so far.

[Goblin Girl]

I think the motor works well in slower waters, but not sure if you can really do much with the motor in the rapids. I have read that using the raft motor is easier for players on console or using a joystick, but I've been using just a keyboard. I'm still not great at it, but I find I have better control of the motor when I am also pushing down forward (w) and tapping left and right to steer. Hope that helps. 5 bottles of gas is probably more than enough if you visit the marinas often. I used the motor mostly in the wastelands to help get through the slower waters more quickly.

I don't remember the exact amount of time, but I think the 1000 miles took close to a week? Since then I've played 3 more endless games to get achievements but I can't seem to get Vegetarian to pop. Maybe 200 hours is enough and time to move to another game until I hear that Vegetarian and Animal Friend are actually achievable.

[Forsaken]

Actually it works great on rapids, you need to be pressing W the whole time you have it on to maintain control. It helps to control your direction and gives you the control vs the rapids deciding everything, try it out, I just learned this recently.

[Toma]

I started playing again, and I fininished reloading Aesop's bag. Took only around 6 hours this time. Also, I had no idea that you could catch two rabbits with a box trap, or how to run, in the the first playthrough. *sighs*

I got the motor. MUCH less useful than I had assumed it would be (EDIT: Meh, maybe it's okay. Used it a couple times now to help get to locations). You can only use it for a few seconds before it stalls out. I had assumed it would work as long as there was gas in it.
Again, I am super tired of not being able to aquire proper information. I missed a camp upstream a bit and thought that going to it with the motor would be a good test, and I can't make it. It's just 100 yards upstream!

Stearing does seem to work okay though when holding W, so thank you for mentioning it, No Regrets.