Help Guides for Simple Info

[trombonaught]

Not sure exactly how to implement the following suggestion, but here's my beef.

 

When baiting traps, I find myself relying on the wiki to figure out where I place my traps and what I place in them. It would be great to have an in-game item that could be used for reference (such as a "trapper's help guide" or something distinguishable from books and magazines), or to have the information revealed gradually through trapping experience. The goal being I can learn everything I need from the game, without breaking immersion.

 

Similarly, treatment of wounds is something players need to know, but are never told explicitly. While it may be common sense for some that a deep wound requires stitches, common sense for others might not cover this information, especially if they don't know suture needles exist in the game- some sort of "first aid help guide" could be used to provide basic instruction on actions that are otherwise hidden without the correct wound and item combination.

 

Stretching the idea further, I think the crafting interface could use some refinement or smoother integration into the game. Digging through the menus which sometimes contain an exorbitant amount of mundane recipes (I'm looking at you, Farming) feels tedious and is sometimes misleading due to the omission of many capabilities (world-object creation via carpentry/metalworking, treatments with first aid, etc). I'd ask you to entertain the idea of presenting all recipes through additional help guides, perhaps grouping "help guide editions" as they appear now in the crafting menu (carpentry, survival, fishing, etc) or by some other means ("Log Work," "Primitive Tool Making," etc).

 

tldr; What if immersion were streamlined with literature documents in-game that provided "tips" information to players while having no mechanical function (no XP boost or stress reward)?

 

 

Great idea from Dr_Cox1911 reads:

Spoiler

What I would really like: make reading skillbooks more interesting in that it's actually something you (as in the player) is reading. If we stay on the subject of trapping: If you are reading a trapping book a window similiar to the Spiffo guide pops up and presents all the stuff regarding it. In the background, the timed action for reading the book will still progress.

 

The first page could be some kind of table of contents which would also be clickable to jump to a page directly.

When you've read the book it already and you read it again the window pops back up without the timed action.

 

Edited March 23, 2017 by trombonaught

[makkenhoff]

Something like the spiffo quickstart tutorial, but specific to each discipline?

[Dr_Cox1911]

What I would really like: make reading skillbooks more interesting in that it's actually something you (as in the player) is reading. If we stay on the subject of trapping: If you are reading a trapping book a window similiar to the Spiffo guide pops up and presents all the stuff regarding it. In the background, the timed action for reading the book will still progress.

 

The first page could be some kind of table of contents which would also be clickable to jump to a page directly.

When you've read the book it already and you read it again the window pops back up without the timed action.

[trombonaught]

20 minutes ago, Dr_Cox1911 said:

What I would really like: make reading skillbooks more interesting in that it's actually something you (as in the player) is reading.

This would be an excellent direction to move in. To avoid frontloading too much development, the simplest form could be to open the relevant crafting menu information when a book from any level of the skill is being read. Later on, the absent information regarding treatment of wounds and trap use, as well as carp/metal object creation, could be added in as well.

 

The current in-menu crafting functionality would probably be left out to facilitate the reading progress bar, but I think this is fine (does anyone actually craft within those menus anymore?).