How hard would you want "Stalker Mode" to be if you had a choice

[cowboymrh]

I believe the 2 changes that could make the biggest impact on stalker mode would be:

1. Perhaps (as mentioned before) 50% less loot overall! But even more than that, make the "hacksaw", "rifle", and to a lesser extent, the "hatchet" really, really, rare, and hard to find!!

Imagine if there were only 2 hacksaws and 1 rifle on all the maps combined! And there was a potential of perhaps 20 or 30 different potential and unlikely spawn sites!

The thought of it taking weeks to possibly find a hacksaw would really be a challenge, and imagine the "sheer joy" when you finally find one and can then go open containers!! The same could be done with the rifle! And imagine that first week or two potentially without a hatchet to gather bulk firewood or break down furniture! That would be a huge early game change!

2. Slower condition recovery from animal attacks, perhaps no more than 10% or 20% per day would also have a marked effect on the difficulty. You would be forced to decide whether to stay where you are to fully recover and perhaps starve to death, or go out to hunt and scavenge with  lower health condition! Either choice would have its risks!

I just happen to think that just these 2 changes alone would make "Stalker mode" a whole new beast!

[MueckE]

guys again, you can not reduce the loot. This would change nothing except making the game boring and kill the aspect of exploring.

Example (just for understanding): Lets say the game is limited to the area of trapper's cabin. Unnamed Pond - Max last stand - Trapper's / imagine that this is the limit and you can not go somewhere else. Now imagine that it is guaranteed that you will not find a rifle and no bow! Hmm lets add that there is no knive and no hatchet. Now try to remember what you can find in this small area. Ok? Now, I bet i can easily survive 100+ days like that. I also think that there are people out there who still will survive 1k+ days under these circumstances. After a while, you will find tutorials and videos on youtube how to do it, and than this would be easy for everyone.

Reducing loot is not an option! It just would ruin the game and wouldnt make the game harder (only for a short time and only for a few players)

 

Slower condition recovery on the other hand maybe could be a useful tool.

[ChillPlayer]

47 minutes ago, MueckE said:

Reducing loot is not an option! It just would ruin the game and wouldnt make the game harder (only for a short time and only for a few players)

as I wrote before, the game used to have much less loot and food and it was way more fun to play. There's a difference between "only one item per all maps" and just a few scattered around. The loot distribution now is perfect for speedrunning because you literally can just pick up everything you need on the go, but it spoils ordinary sandbox play because finding the 30th sewingkit isn't just as exciting anymore.

[cekivi]

50 minutes ago, ChillPlayer said:

as I wrote before, the game used to have much less loot and food and it was way more fun to play. There's a difference between "only one item per all maps" and just a few scattered around. The loot distribution now is perfect for speedrunning because you literally can just pick up everything you need on the go, but it spoils ordinary sandbox play because finding the 30th sewingkit isn't just as exciting anymore.

Or your fifth hatchet.

Reducing loot is only one possible metric to adjust and the game can be very tense and lots of fun when there is less loot. For instance, if you look into the archives everyone used to complain about there being no scrap metal since you needed scrap metal to repair everything. It forced the choice between being able to have a gun or a hatchet since you couldn't keep both repaired. Can openers were amazing. You had a way to open those cans without damaging your precious knife (maybe you could find one more) and it could be harvested for scrap! Bonus!

You can still have random loot and I am definitely not advocating for "only one of everything per sandbox" but making items precious again would, on the whole, be a good thing in my opinion.

[cowboymrh]

3 hours ago, MueckE said:

 Lets say the game is limited to the area of trapper's cabin. Unnamed Pond - Max last stand - Trapper's / imagine that this is the limit and you can not go somewhere else. Now imagine that it is guaranteed that you will not find a rifle and no bow! Hmm lets add that there is no knive and no hatchet. Now try to remember what you can find in this small area. Ok? Now, I bet i can easily survive 100+ days like that.

 

 

 

So you are saying you can start a new character, and survive 100 days playing "stalker mode" in that one small corner of the Mystery Lake map with no rifle, no hatchet, no bow,  and no knife!! ?? And you can't leave that area for any reason??

I would like to see someone do just as you described, because I guess I have a hard time believing someone could survive 100 days in the way you described above, or even half that time! No disrespect meant!

 

3 hours ago, MueckE said:

guys again, you can not reduce the loot. This would change nothing except making the game boring and kill the aspect of exploring.

Reducing loot is not an option! It just would ruin the game and wouldnt make the game harder (only for a short time and only for a few players)

 

 

I just disagree. I firmly believe reducing loot would "force you" to explore more for the items you need to survive!

[Tbone555]

no one said "three items per map"
but i shouldn't have 10 hatchets and 20 knives scattered all over the floor of my shelter..

[Rusty_Old_F250]

On 5/15/2016 at 0:08 PM, cekivi said:

You wouldn't want zero condition recovery though. The game would become very short since freezing would make you very dead very quickly. For instance, it's not uncommon to lose a few percentage points due to cold when exploring a map, collecting firewood, etc. If that loss is permanent than you can never really leave your shelter.

That's true, I doubt anyone would last past a week, haha

Sam

[MueckE]

14 hours ago, cowboymrh said:

I would like to see someone do just as you described, because I guess I have a hard time believing someone could survive 100 days in the way you described above, or even half that time! No disrespect meant!

I just disagree. I firmly believe reducing loot would "force you" to explore more for the items you need to survive!

And what items are you talking about? All you really need to survive is beeing able to make a fire and to sleep, thats basicly it. No offence, but it would be more valuable if you would know, instead of believing. Check out twitch and youtube for "super hard mode", "naked and afraid" or my challenge "the undertaker" so you get an impression of what can be done. Also a little math could be useful so you could plan how many calories, and with that days of survival, for example cattails provide, or how many possible deer carcasses spawn only in the discribed area.

(if it sounds harsh, i apologize, english is not my first language :))

15 hours ago, ChillPlayer said:

as I wrote before, the game used to have much less loot and food and it was way more fun to play.

Thats not compareable. At that point, there was only mystery lake. There was almost no deer and even if you had the gun, it was extremely hard to kill one + rare deer carcasses, no plants to harvest, wolfattack was a guarateed death, no sleeping outside, almost no medicine, the only possible rifle spawn was inside the dam, maximum of 5 bullets to find (if), high decayrate, no craftable clothes or premium wintercoats, no fishing/rabbits, no cattails etc. , basicly the game was completely diffrent. Sure you can make Stalker like that again, but what kind of approach is it to throw out everything that has been developed since 2014?

 

I mean, the way to go is not to remove things, it is to add things and balance it.  Too much meat from bears and wolves? -> ADDED PARASITES -> game harder and more complex, thats the way to go, and not to remove bears or to not let them respawn.

[ChillPlayer]

@MueckE I was speaking about v150-200ish which hit the sweet spot for me of being very playable while still providing many thrilling moments the game forced on me to continue my survival. Back then we already had CH too and with 189 (or 190?) came the first version of PV with only 4 non-respawning bears. You have a tendency to put one extrem (the current state) against the other extrem you described from back in 2014. But there was an "inbetween" for the better part of a whole year where no one felt an overabundance of loot and most people could deal with what they got and that's what I wish for.

You are right that the addition of new afflictions does combat this to some extend but personally I can still rely way too much for my liking on finding loot to survive instead of working for my survival.

[cowboymrh]

42 minutes ago, MueckE said:

 

Sure you can make Stalker like that again, but what kind of approach is it to throw out everything that has been developed since 2014?

Nobody wants to "throw out everything that has been developed since 2014".......... 

Just reduce the huge abundance of duplicate items that make survival so easy, ........ and only for Stalker mode.

[MueckE]

than it was a misunderstanding. I felt that there is way to much loot after CH was added. First i was excited (new map, new content), but than i noticed that the map was so easy to navigate and that there was so much loot that you only had to go to - lets say coastal townside - to survive for thousands of days (that was the time i hibernated for 1k days). Thats why i said, the idea of reducing the loot to make stalker harder is pretty old   Anyway, since that time i dont like CH and only go there if i have to (thank god, PV was added)

I am currently searching the forum for ideas that could be useful. I may find my old "stalker balance" posts where i put a few things together already. I will open a new thread where all of you are invited to discuss the points and maybe we can throw something together.

[ChillPlayer]

Shouldn't be to hard to find "old" ideas if the messages from the old forum were migrated If those messages are lost, I think this thread has alot of good ideas already. If you were unhappy with CH though, how can you like PV as it was prior to cabin fewer and parasites? There's wasn't an easier place to live forever than Farmstead with it's respawning bear coming to visit you twice a day

[cekivi]

Heck, just non respawning predators (and deer to a lesser extent) would make the game far harder. Do you shoot the wolf for food or risk keeping it around so it could bring down deer for you? Bears definitely shouldn't respawn. They add far too many resources into the game.

[ChillPlayer]

23 minutes ago, cekivi said:

Heck, just non respawning predators (and deer to a lesser extent) would make the game far harder. Do you shoot the wolf for food or risk keeping it around so it could bring down deer for you? Bears definitely shouldn't respawn. They add far too many resources into the game.

I again completely agree, especially with bears. Wolf/Deer respawn once a year would be fine though

[SteveP]

Interesting topic. There are a number of factors that affect difficulty. The idea of animal behaviour evolving is a good one. That gives a better balance to the early game and makes strategy evolution necessary. I'm not sure how we can quantify the difference between Voyageur and Stalker. The poll doesn't mention animal behaviour differences between Voyageur and Stalker. We know it is quite different for Pilgrim. Weather is another factor that is easy to tune to make it much more difficult in Stalker. The amount of loot spawned has to be tuned to permit the player to locate critical resources/tools such as the hatchet and weapons. If there were a tactic to permit stealing meat from wolf kills, that would make it possible to endure without weapons in early game.

Concerning water, the weight penalty should be sufficient for carrying excess water. It also creates more noise which has an effect upon wild life. Carried water won't freeze nor should water stored indoors.

I would abstain from simulating temperature decay just because it is difficult to implement correctly and extremely difficult to test ad hoc. It seems to be an artificial constraint that really doesn't permit strategic options. I suppose storing water outdoors might freeze it.

Personally, I think the biggest challenge and interest is in the animal behaviours. I like the bear challenge since it permits exploration of a different set of animal behaviours so I think the idea of challenges is a good one. Challenges should be extremely difficult but also more diverse in nature.

[ChillPlayer]

I am at day 24 now on a fresh Stalker run and I must say that it's much more interesting to play than it used to be for a long time. Sure you still get quickly everything what you need in ML but living on Jackrabbit Island (or anywhere stationary for that matter) isn't a walk in the park now. The reason being that thanks to parasites I pretty much have taken bear and wolf off the menu, the only viable option in kcal/bullet are deer. But there are no deer anymore comfortable near by except for one, at least around the island as it used to be. The whole frozen sea is just empty except for wolf-infested Waterfront and 80% of the time the weather is bad, either strong winds, fog or blizzard. Killing wolves got quite a bit harder too, it seems when it's close enough you cannot shoot it anymore but this might be just me missing, I used to hit much more reliable.

I would've moved some days ago already but I'm waiting for some hides and guts to cures so once I go to gazstation I can craft the mittens and bear bedroll. I think the new changes do play out and I haven't even reached the days where I can get cabin fewer. Once I've crafted my stuff I won't stay for long in a place and instead go on a deer hunt across all maps. I don't even particulary care anymore about too much loot, and least not as early in the game as I'm now. What's really tough and makes weather quiter severe is how fast cloths degrade during blizzards, giving more reason to hunt and sometime pass the time while the hides cure.

I said it before and I say it again, the game is moving in the right direction

[Hatchet]

Not to be annoying but the poll didn't correspondent with my opinion, i would like to see a harder than stalker difficulty mode, but also more balanced.
But a perfect balance that applies to everyone is nigh impossible, thus...
What i really would like to see most of all, is a way to mess with the ingame difficulty yourself, set it completely to your liking or to create unique experiences or challenges that could than be shared online, or scrap the latter for now, considering servers aren't free.
You'd be able to alter pretty much anything, be it hut spawn rates, weapons, provisions, branches, animals, lenght of time of day/night, when the sen suts and dawns a new day, etc..
But if i have to believe the developers, that will never happen, luckely i don't believe them, i don't call them a bunch of liars but then again, if you don't believe me, could i then be considered telling a lie here?
By the way, feel free pointing out the obvious, but don't fall into my pit of snakes!

[selfless]

53 minutes ago, Hatchet said:

Not to be annoying but the poll didn't correspondent with my opinion, i would like to see a harder than stalker difficulty mode, but also more balanced.
But a perfect balance that applies to everyone is nigh impossible, thus...
What i really would like to see most of all, is a way to mess with the ingame difficulty yourself, set it completely to your liking or to create unique experiences or challenges that could than be shared online, or scrap the latter for now, considering servers aren't free.
You'd be able to alter pretty much anything, be it hut spawn rates, weapons, provisions, branches, animals, lenght of time of day/night, when the sen suts and dawns a new day, etc..
But if i have to believe the developers, that will never happen, luckely i don't believe them, i don't call them a bunch of liars but then again, if you don't believe me, could i then be considered telling a lie here?
By the way, feel free pointing out the obvious, but don't fall into my pit of snakes!

Someday maybe.  But for a game under development, its hard enough to track the issues and satisfaction levels in 3 different hardset difficulties.  

[cekivi]

6 hours ago, Hatchet said:

Not to be annoying but the poll didn't correspondent with my opinion, i would like to see a harder than stalker difficulty mode, but also more balanced.
But a perfect balance that applies to everyone is nigh impossible, thus...
What i really would like to see most of all, is a way to mess with the ingame difficulty yourself, set it completely to your liking or to create unique experiences or challenges that could than be shared online, or scrap the latter for now, considering servers aren't free.
You'd be able to alter pretty much anything, be it hut spawn rates, weapons, provisions, branches, animals, lenght of time of day/night, when the sen suts and dawns a new day, etc..
But if i have to believe the developers, that will never happen, luckely i don't believe them, i don't call them a bunch of liars but then again, if you don't believe me, could i then be considered telling a lie here?
By the way, feel free pointing out the obvious, but don't fall into my pit of snakes!

Remember that modding is on the road map. Although it is unlikely that the development team wants to introduce that many variables (how would you identify balance issues and bugs?!?) there's nothing stopping a mod from introducing them unofficially. So, whenever modding is implemented, you should be able to mess with most of the variables to make the game you want.

[Hatchet]

40 minutes ago, cekivi said:

Remember that modding is on the road map. Although it is unlikely that the development team wants to introduce that many variables (how would you identify balance issues and bugs?!?) there's nothing stopping a mod from introducing them unofficially. So, whenever modding is implemented, you should be able to mess with most of the variables to make the game you want.

Hmm, nop, can't remember, i must have missed it, or perhaps it was because it's only for pc? Then my brain didn't fully register it.
I don't like gaming on a Pc.
I compare gaming on a rig with driving a Dodge Ram, and gaming on a console with driving a Harley, down the same road.
I prefer the Harley.
 

[cekivi]

1 hour ago, Hatchet said:

Hmm, nop, can't remember, i must have missed it, or perhaps it was because it's only for pc? Then my brain didn't fully register it.
I don't like gaming on a Pc.
I compare gaming on a rig with driving a Dodge Ram, and gaming on a console with driving a Harley, down the same road.
I prefer the Harley.
 

There's your problem: Ford's are clearly better

To use your analogy, with a truck you can pull a boat, bring a camper, pile all your friends in the back seats, use it for work, etc. Motorcycles are designed for only one purpose and they do it very well. Between the two though, I prefer the versatility of the truck.

Joking aside I don't know if mods are coming to consoles or if PC mods will be console compatible. PC modding is definitely planned though.

[hauteecolerider]

PC mods won't be compatible with consoles. Simply because consoles run on different OS's than PCs. 

Then on the Xbox there is the fact that Microsoft keeps it a closed system. So modders can't technically create mods for it.

If a mod for TLD were to come out that I absolutely must have, then I'll play it on PC. Otherwise, I'm content to play it on Mac.

Personally i prefer PC for games I want to mod. Namely, Oblivion and Skyrim. Play those on Win7 in Boot Camp. No problems there. But those are games I'd prefer to mod. I started out with Oblivion on Xbox and switched to PC because I couldn't stand how the game's potential wasn't fully realized. 

[cekivi]

On the bright side, some things are now cross platform compatible. For instance, I was reading that Doom's level creator can share maps across all systems. Whether that is possible here... probably not but you never know.

[hauteecolerider]

Yes, and so is the Unity platform. 

I think the issue with Xbox is Microsoft's copyright lawyers . . .

[Hatchet]

9 hours ago, cekivi said:

There's your problem: Ford's are clearly better

To use your analogy, with a truck you can pull a boat, bring a camper, pile all your friends in the back seats, use it for work, etc. Motorcycles are designed for only one purpose and they do it very well. Between the two though, I prefer the versatility of the truck.

Joking aside I don't know if mods are coming to consoles or if PC mods will be console compatible. PC modding is definitely planned though.
 

What boat, and camper? What are friends?
Hahaha, personal preference, but if i had a truck a boat and a camper i would also still have a Harley strapped to the truck.
I would also love a Ford V8 Flatbike with an SS paintjob just as much as i'd like a Harley, but, money...
Hey atleast you realise you were joking when you said Ford is better, so all is guud.

The issue with Xbox is Microsoft XD
If they ever bring out a mod on your PC that lets you change the in game variables then i hope it gets downloaded so much it makes the developers reconsider.
Wait that wasn't really on topic, heh.