Surviving forever / full autonomy

[Hobbesyb]

Hello !
I don't know if this is planned.

But an ultimate aim to the sandbox player could be to attain a level from which one could survive forever. This implies being able, allowed, in the game, to build a living with only natural stuff, that can be refurbished, repaired, regrown, forever.

For now, there are some stuff that fulfill this aim, for example being able to craft clothes for animals.

But whatever risks and perils we overcome, whatever the amount of care we take, there's still a point, in the game, when we cannot go further : we'll run out of matches, we'll run out of whetstones, we'll run out of cloth, scrap metal ... etc...

Actually, patiently building stuff, shelter and ressources to achieve full autonomy should be the very aim of the sandbox. In the same sort of idea that, the new challenges, recently added, share.
Then, only a big mistake could kill the player at this level. Full autonomy should be achievable in several hundreds of days, like it nearly is now.
Then, the game should show "you won" after a certain amount of days spent in full autonomy.

What do you think ?
 

[cowboymrh]

I think a person could be fully self sustaining in one place for a time, but then eventually, you are going to run out of one or several needed resources and will either have to move from that location, or travel greater distances to acquire the resources you need.

Since the last update, It is that "exploring component" of the game, which now has a much greater risk factor to it. For example:

I'm living at the fishing huts on Coastal Highway and living rather comfortably in (Stalker Mode). Have everything I need (for the moment), But I wanted to see the new features added to the "Ravine" map.

So I packed up for a short trip and headed to the ravine. Halfway up the hill, I'm just about to one of the blue trailers.

I start to hear faint sound of running footsteps getting louder and louder. I look to my right and see a wolf charging at me full speed, no bark, no growl, just charging!

Fortunately, I'm just a few feet from the trailer door and duck inside just before the wolf gets to me and he finally snarls and growls.

As I'm inside the trailer I think to myself............. That's how quickly a run can end!!!

I can't say for sure, maybe some of you other folks can chime in, but it seems like the wolves are much more stealthy since the patch, and don't "give themselves away" as soon as they see you like they used to. This factor alone, greatly reduces the possibility of very long runs.

[Hobbesyb]

Actually, I'm at 126 days, completely stuffed with animal skin, bow and arrows, and the stuff of all maps (exept TM) in one house (got a huge store ^^). The new AI of wolves gives you a chance of escaping, too.

[Drifter Man]

It depends on the timeframe. Crafted clothes aren't "autonomous", actually, because you need tools to repair them and these tools wear out (although it takes ages). I believe full autonomy is currently achieved if you have access to 1) a fully protected house/shelter with a bed, 2) a rabbit zone, 3) about 15 sticks per day AND are willing to use the starvation/caloric restriction tactic. I haven't tried this as I don't find such play style interesting.

In my opinion, full autonomy is currently impossible without caloric restriction, although you may be able to put away the endgame for thousands of days. I explore this aspect of the game in my "1000 days in the Dam" project in the survival stories. I haven't heard of anyone here who lived more than 1000 days, though - not because it is too hard, but because people become disinterested and start another sandbox instead. So the discussion about immortality/longevity has limited practical importance, I think.

My preference would be to give the player many options how to behave and use their resources, but to keep the game as open as possible when it comes to the eventual ending (or lack thereof). Frankly, a "you won" screen does not appeal to me.

[Ruruwawa]

@Hobbesyb Interesting thoughts.  I don't want a "you win" screen for sandbox play, since that goes against the spirit of a sandbox.  

But I'd welcome primitive alternatives to all the tools that currently limit sandbox duration.  Especially if you started at very low skill with flint knapping or fire starting or whatever, and had to put a lot of effort into building your skill so the primitive tools actually worked well enough to keep you alive.

[Salty Crackers]

I'm pretty sure you can survive forever if you snare rabbits and make fire with the mag lens and sticks for fuel.

[Pillock]

Given that your clothes will eventually wear out due to finite metal for fishing tackle to repair/make them, would you really be able to keep yourself warm enough to do things like collect sticks and harvest rabbits?

Perhaps the player themselves would die of old age before using up the total fishing-hook potential in the entire gameworld, though.

[Hobbesyb]

@Ruruwawa Yeah, me neither actually, but I was thinking the same as you about autonomy, and I tried to explain just that

[selfless]

All I can think reading forever this is how they will have to invent geriatric alzheimer's and cancer afflictions then add an age bar to show your progressive weakening as the years roll on.

Please.  No.  I'm not saying the sandbox need have a fixed end.  I'm just saying anyone who makes it to the point where they no longer feel threatened should declare their own victory.  Or don't.  But it's still just a sandbox.  Play as you wish.

[hauteecolerider]

On April 30, 2016 at 5:30 PM, selfless said:

Please.  No.  I'm not saying the sandbox need have a fixed end.  I'm just saying anyone who makes it to the point where they no longer feel threatened should declare their own victory.  Or don't.  But it's still just a sandbox.  Play as you wish.

I quite like the idea of the sandbox being open-ended. I don't necessarily want a finite gameplay, but I do want the resources to last as long as I want to play a particular character. I doubt I would want to play much longer than say 250 - 300 days. In fact, once I get the 200 day achievement, I probably won't play a character that long again. Once all the maps are explored and all the things are "done," I tend to lose interest in the repetition. It happened on Oblivion. And Skyrim. The reason I keep coming back to those games is because I keep creating new builds to try out, and set up new mod loadouts to create different experiences. 

I don't want the game telling me I've won, because at the game of life, you never win. You just keep going until you die. 

[Wasteland Watcher]

I'd be happy if a finite time limit was added to sandbox. 

We don't know the age of the character but I assume him or her to be mid 20s to mid 30s. 

Tack on 80 years and that seems about right for a nice, quiet ending where you go to sleep one night and just don't wake up. 

It might be kind of sad, but it's also kind of poetic in a way. 

[exeexe]

You have full autonomy at day 0 since autonomy means no one is telling you what to do and since you are alone in the world its 100%

 

[exeexe]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/autarchy
a condition of economic self-sufficiency

[Drifter Man]

On 4/30/2016 at 0:30 AM, selfless said:

All I can think reading forever this is how they will have to invent geriatric alzheimer's and cancer afflictions then add an age bar to show your progressive weakening as the years roll on.

An idea for the purpose of the debate - as I said, very few players would actually experience the effect of aging: Like degradable items, let the player have a "master condition" (age) that only goes down. It could be set to ca 25 years of life by default and decrease at a constant rate when the character is in 100% condition. Less than 100% condition would make it drop faster - twice as fast at 50% condition, 10 times at 10% condition, 100 times at 1% condition.

Low "master condition" would mean higher fatigue rate, slower condition recovery, and possibly (at "advanced age") lower walking speed. "Master condition" would not have to be visible to the player as he/she would tell it by the behavior of the character. Old age would creep on you, like it does IRL.

It could be an interesting addition for long-term survivors to make them become aware of age. "Dying of old age" should not be universally regarded as victory, or the objective of the sandbox. Neither should it be easy (or even possible) to reach 0% "master condition", and I would never advocate lowering the difficulty of the game to that end.

Note: This idea goes against my previous statement that I don't wish the game to have a fixed end, but my "1000 Days in the Dam" project begins to show that survival for 10,000 days - over 25 years - might be possible even without starvation/caloric restriction tactic.

[Ruruwawa]

4 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

An idea for the purpose of the debate - as I said, very few players would actually experience the effect of aging: Like degradable items, let the player have a "master condition" (age) that only goes down. It could be set to ca 25 years of life by default and decrease at a constant rate when the character is in 100% condition. Less than 100% condition would make it drop faster - twice as fast at 50% condition, 10 times at 10% condition, 100 times at 1% condition.

Low "master condition" would mean higher fatigue rate, slower condition recovery, and possibly (at "advanced age") lower walking speed. "Master condition" would not have to be visible to the player as he/she would tell it by the behavior of the character. Old age would creep on you, like it does IRL.

It could be an interesting addition for long-term survivors to make them become aware of age. "Dying of old age" should not be universally regarded as victory, or the objective of the sandbox. Neither should it be easy (or even possible) to reach 0% "master condition", and I would never advocate lowering the difficulty of the game to that end.

Note: This idea goes against my previous statement that I don't wish the game to have a fixed end, but my "1000 Days in the Dam" project begins to show that survival for 10,000 days - over 25 years - might be possible even without starvation/caloric restriction tactic.

Interesting.  I'm still in the "no fixed end" camp so I don't like the idea of max "vigor" (not sure what to call it) dropping by default, even if you always maintain very high condition.  But the rest of the proposal is an interesting way to counter routine low condition from any cause.  Instead of a system that targets routine starvation, for example.  

Overall my feeling is that this system wouldn't add much fun to the game.   Imagine being a new player who's finally cracked enough of the code to survive past the first few days.  He's punished for his early mistakes with a harder game from there on.  I imagine we'd see some "restart to make it easier" threads -- probably not the best way to reward his accomplishment.

[SteelFire]

7 minutes ago, Ruruwawa said:

Interesting.  I'm still in the "no fixed end" camp so I don't like the idea of max "vigor" (not sure what to call it) dropping by default, even if you always maintain very high condition.  But the rest of the proposal is an interesting way to counter routine low condition from any cause.  Instead of a system that targets routine starvation, for example.  

Overall my feeling is that this system wouldn't add much fun to the game.   Imagine being a new player who's finally cracked enough of the code to survive past the first few days.  He's punished for his early mistakes with a harder game from there on.  I imagine we'd see some "restart to make it easier" threads -- probably not the best way to reward his accomplishment.

Agree with this 100%. I really do like the concept of a system that rewards/penalizes for maintaining good/bad conditions however. I've been thinking about that recently, but more about it being a mini auto-levelling type system that started with a slightly lower carry weight and stamina than currently, but with each week of good condition maintenance you'd improve those values by a kg or percentage respectively, until ultimately you ended up with carry wait and stamina that topped out slightly higher than they are now. Reflecting that you've leaned up and built muscle and endurance by hiking around carrying stuff and staying healthy. On the penalty side, spend too much time starving, dehydrated, hypothermic, or exhausted during a week (or enough of a combination thereof) and you lose a point (or points if you've done really badly) of carry weight or stamina; but never to drop below the starting values.

To fit that into long, long-term gameplay, maybe after a few decades of survival, it starts to take longer to recover from bad condition maintenance. I definitely wouldn't ever want to see auto-degradation of physical condition though, as that takes away player control and there are people who stay healthy and strong into their 80's. I think this is an area where fun and the rule of cool overshadows realism. If someone can and wants to survive for 100+ years, I say let them.

[Drifter Man]

A general fitness model would be of some actual practical importance, as opposed to aging. I am in favor of a mechanism that would reward/punish the player based on how well he/she maintains condition in the long run.

[Ruruwawa]

Just now, Drifter Man said:

A general fitness model would be of some actual practical importance, as opposed to aging. I am in favor of a mechanism that would reward/punish the player based on how well he/she maintains condition in the long run.

I agree.

[Pillock]

11 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

An idea for the purpose of the debate - as I said, very few players would actually experience the effect of aging: Like degradable items, let the player have a "master condition" (age) that only goes down. It could be set to ca 25 years of life by default and decrease at a constant rate when the character is in 100% condition. Less than 100% condition would make it drop faster - twice as fast at 50% condition, 10 times at 10% condition, 100 times at 1% condition.

Low "master condition" would mean higher fatigue rate, slower condition recovery, and possibly (at "advanced age") lower walking speed. "Master condition" would not have to be visible to the player as he/she would tell it by the behavior of the character. Old age would creep on you, like it does IRL.

It could be an interesting addition for long-term survivors to make them become aware of age. "Dying of old age" should not be universally regarded as victory, or the objective of the sandbox. Neither should it be easy (or even possible) to reach 0% "master condition", and I would never advocate lowering the difficulty of the game to that end.

Note: This idea goes against my previous statement that I don't wish the game to have a fixed end, but my "1000 Days in the Dam" project begins to show that survival for 10,000 days - over 25 years - might be possible even without starvation/caloric restriction tactic.

This is a fantastic idea. Can I make a suggestion?

I agree that it would be better if you didn't get to see your Master Condition during play, but if you ever did reach 1% (your final 'season' of life), I'd want to know when I'd got that far. And I'd want to have good quality booze and cigars in the game so that I could sit back and while away the time until my inevitable end arrived - because what's the point in doing survival chores when you're about kick the bucket?

[Drifter Man]

I was thinking more that the inability to do survival chores would get you before that. In that situation, I'd break out the booze myself. It would be a waste for a virtual character, in particular for a dying one

35 minutes ago, Pillock said:

Can I make a suggestion?

Anytime, especially after today 

[Pillock]

2 minutes ago, Drifter Man said:

I was thinking more that the inability to do survival chores would get you before that.

I see! I didn't appreciate that at first. That's even better.

(Not that I would ever, ever play the game long enough to reach that point, but anyway.)

[cowboymrh]

Several months ago I suggested an idea about "permanent lasting damage" from animal attacks, where you would lose a small amount of condition after each animal attack that you would never regain. Some liked the idea, some not.

I still think that in one way or another, recovery from an animal attack should result in "VERY SLOW" condition recovery, (perhaps no more than 10% per day).

Simple changes like this could make a huge impact on game play and long runs.

I guess for me personally, I would like to see changes that lessened the possibility of really long character runs, so that "if you did" make it for over 1 year for example ...... you've done something that only 1% or 2% of players could ever do. (at least for stalker mode)

But I know we each have our own feelings on this.

[Pillock]

4 hours ago, cowboymrh said:

Several months ago I suggested an idea about "permanent lasting damage" from animal attacks, where you would lose a small amount of condition after each animal attack that you would never regain. Some liked the idea, some not.

I still think that in one way or another, recovery from an animal attack should result in "VERY SLOW" condition recovery, (perhaps no more than 10% per day).

Simple changes like this could make a huge impact on game play and long runs.

I guess for me personally, I would like to see changes that lessened the possibility of really long character runs, so that "if you did" make it for over 1 year for example ...... you've done something that only 1% or 2% of players could ever do. (at least for stalker mode)

But I know we each have our own feelings on this.

Yeah, injuries need to be much more long term - at the moment recovery time doesn't even exist! It's just instant cures.

The fact that you get "Minor bruising" sometimes, and that it doesn't seem to have any effect on the character, leads me to believe that these mechanics are unfinished, perhaps. I really hope so, anyway. It would add a lot of variety to the game if you were constantly nursing ailments, and if they really affected your ability to carry out basic tasks.

[ShawnB]

The end game for me is once I get stacked on all top quality equipment, bow, rifle and clothes. Then the real challenge starts that I can never beat...boredom. This generally happens around 100 days. The most exciting part of this game is the first few days. Add on some more challenges or self imposed player challenges and let the fun continue.

I don't think this game should be about long term survival because I feel the majority of players, like me, are not determined or patient enough for that. Things just get too boring then. Devs should focus on gameplay in the 100 days range and make that window harder rather than making features for +100 day gameplay. Am I off to say this about the community? I've played 200 hrs but still not gotten to 100 days because I get bored and know I will have more fun starting a new game with a new self imposed challenge twist.

Agreed with injuries, too short term and easy to heal. Make them long term but maybe make some less severe like wrist sprains decrease accuracy, but don't completely prevent shooting.