How I stopped worrying and learned to love the recent changes

[ChillPlayer]

The recent changes introduced in the latest update make living in Stalker a bit harder but they also come with advantages, either of a practical nature or by breaking routine and thus bringing more variety to the gameplay. I am not sure if everything works out as the devs intended but here are my thoughts on the various new mechanics and why I love...

the new Sleep/Rest Mechanic
1. I move much faster across the map again. When stamina based sprinting was introduced I almost never sprinted/ran anymore of fear to collapse completely exhausted in the worst possible place. Now I need to sprint because I can only sleep (and regain condition) when I am exhausted. I plan my routes in a way that I always have a place to go to sleep when needed and I sprint from house to house or cave. But also if I'm just running errands (gathering wood, picking up meat and so on) I am no longer hesitant to run, I just sprint and get back.

2. Finally I can rest and let time pass without being completely blind and I can abort resting whenever I want. If a Blizzard is going on I don't have to sleep by the hour, I just "spend time" for 12h and as soon as the "??? hours daylight" changes to a number I can quit resting. Dying in sleep has also become less of an issue because I rest much more than I sleep.

parasites in wolf/bear meat
this is long overdue, my main tactict now with wolves is to completely ignore them except if I need their hide and the same goes for bears. It never felt "natural" to hunt down a wolf or a bear ingame or using wolves to hunt down my deer, but hunting deer with a rifle does, I feel like I'm a hunter when I sneak up on a deer, get into position and land a perfect shot. I don't know if my aim just got better or if insta killing with a rifle got easier but I very rarely miss when the deer is walking towards me, just aim for the front below the head and bam. If I don't kill it with one shot I rest for 1-2 hours and pick up the meat later, for conveniantly they usually come back to where they were shot and die there.

decay rates indoor
1. I usually only take what I need right now and no longer try to fill my 40kg fridge in one go, instead I only hunt one or maybe two deer and call it a day. The advantage is that I can go more hunting, thus spend more time outside to prevent cabin fewer and have more exciting moments.

2. This is especially true for Jackrabbits Island, instead of cooking my meat on the balcony where a blizzard might extinguish my fire any time or a wolf may come to visit, I just sprint down to the Fishing Hut with the door down the hill and cook/store my meat there, one of those "errands" I mentioned before which goes very well hand in hand with the new sleep mechanic.

cabin fewer
again something that's long overdue, finally sleep/eating for weeks in one place is broken and I am forced to go outside, shifting the stationary gameplay I used to practice to a more nomadic style and thus bringing more variety to the game. Instead of sleeping for 12h, eat and sleep again for 12h I fill my day with activities, I go hunting, fishing, exploring, cooking outside or even use some of the outside crafting tables. My game sessions are more satisfying than playing clock simulator for hours and more unexpected "stuff" happens to me, bringing some of the long lost excitment back I've used to have in TLD's earlier versions.

I hope this post helps those player which are not happy with the recent changes to shift their perspective a bit and embrace the new changes, especially for long time players the update makes playing TLD more fun and also more challenging without just making Stalker "harder" in terms of less loot or animals. Because I move much more around I even welcome to find some soda or beef jerky ever so often and no longer rely on my 40kg of meat stashed in my shelter.

Please post how you adapt to the new changes in a positive way if I missed something

[Scyzara]

What I personally like most about the recent changes is that they made wolves a bit more challenging to deal with again - both directly and indirectly. In my opinion, wolves are generally easier to avoid now, but the individual wolf is more of a danger if it notices you.

In the past, I had really started to see wolves as mere annoyances for they just didn't threaten my life any more. Even if two of them jumped me in a row, I was still fine and usually above 50% condition. But after I got almost killed by an instant-charging (no trotting phase, it instantly dashed towards me like in the good old days^^) wolfzilla (who did at least twice as much damage as an average wolf) a few days ago I started to treat wolves with more respect again.

The direct aspect why wolves became more of a threat is pretty clear I guess - their AI is less exploitable (no 100% secure torch forcefields and more) and their behavior is a little less predictable now (escape vs. curiosity vs. slow approach vs. charge). The damage they do is also pretty variable - even if one considers fatigue, weapon and clothing as the most important factors influencing your condition loss, there's still a lot of randomness involved regarding an individual wolf's damage. This randomness definitely encourages me to avoid rather than just more or less ignore (or handfight) them. For you never know which individual wolf is weak, strong or a darn monster from hell. (Well, luckily the monsters appear to be extremely scarce.)

What I like in particular about the new wolf behavior is that they're much more aggressive if you're exhausted, overencumbered or at low condition. 

As I for one usually try to exhaust my character on purpose by the end of the day (in order to sleep through the night), I'm more likely to spent longer periods of time walking around outdoors while exhausted. That's the indirect impact of the changes on wolf difficulty I was talking about - dealing with wolves is unquestionably more challenging if decoys, flares and torches are likely to fail and running away is impossible because you're exhausted.

TL, DR:

I really like the new wolf behavior and the way how it makes them less predictable and more of a threat again. 

[hauteecolerider]

1 hour ago, ChillPlayer said:

1. I move much faster across the map again. When stamina based sprinting was introduced I almost never sprinted/ran anymore of fear to collapse completely exhausted in the worst possible place. Now I need to sprint because I can only sleep (and regain condition) when I am exhausted. I plan my routes in a way that I always have a place to go to sleep when needed and I sprint from house to house or cave. But also if I'm just running errands (gathering wood, picking up meat and so on) I am no longer hesitant to run, I just sprint and get back.

@ChillPlayer You might want to rethink this strategy. It worked great until the hot fix that just came out literally minutes ago.

I just stepped out from trying in Pilgrim Mode and finally I was getting tired just trotting after a deer. 

Back to waaaaalking everywhere to make my energy last all day . . . just like in the old days of v. 304.

I'm not complaining, mind you. I rather like that it makes me so tired I gotta nap for a few hours in the middle of the day. 'Course, my Pilgrim game is now at the point where I'm not fighting so much to survive (20 days in, shooting for the 25 day no kill achievement).

[Scyzara]

38 minutes ago, hauteecolerider said:

ChillPlayer You might want to rethink this strategy. It worked great until the hot fix that just came out literally minutes ago.

He's a Stalker player, so he's used to this rate of fatigue gain anyway. Nothing has changed on Stalker regarding fatigue, I've just checked it.

It's only Pilgrim and Voyageur players who will notice an increased fatigue gain as the Devs have decided to apply the Stalker fatigue gain rates for all modes in order to make all players exhausted by the end of the day.

[hauteecolerider]

Okay, makes sense!

[ChillPlayer]

25 minutes ago, Scyzara said:

He's a Stalker player, so he's used to this rate of fatigue gain anyway. Nothing has changed on Stalker regarding fatigue, I've just checked it.

that's exactly right, with the new sleeping mechanic my goal is to get my fatique down when it's time to go to bed, I don't care in particular when I go to bed because the goal of the game is still to survive the longest - and it's easiest to survive in my cozy warm bed

I agree with what you said about wolves Scy, my main use for bullets right now are: deer hunting and scaring wolves away by shooting in the air. In many cases I don't bother anymore to shoot at the wolf directly because I fail at least 1 out of 3 times to kill it, they've learned some sneaky last-second-ninja-turn-moves which makes hitting them no longer a sure thing and instead of wasting 2-3 bullets until I hit it I prefere to fire one in the air and have peace of mind This is especially true for gaz station and other open spaces where several wolves can come after you.

Thanks to that - and because we have plenty but not unlimited bullets - Stalker now fits it's name because I stalk the wolves much more than I used to for a long time, observing them, standing still and just watching and waiting for an opening to get into a building without getting jumped by a wolf.

[MueckE]

@ChillPlayer

i can only agree to what you said. For me it is the best update and basicly all things that had to be worked on for so long finally are done. The outcome is just amazing.

Sure, you can always tweak some things here and there, but overall i feel like playing a full game. There is nothing that HAS TO BE implemented or fixed anymore. The mechanics and features allow a deep, complex gaming. On top the graphics and the sound now are just stunning. The world is alive and feels real(?).

I just read a similar topic in my subforum and there people are complaining ....

thank god i found this

[Gallowsknight]

I find my character's day is more natural with the changes. No longer any binges of crafting in the dark of a basement or sleeping whenever I wanted to kill time. 

My guy wakes up around daylight. Drinks water. Eats breakfast from meat cooked the night before. Checks the traps outside my cabin and harvests rabbits. Goes back inside to warm up with some crafting or reading or maintencen. Then when it's milder in the middle of the day, I go doing errands, salvaging, hunting, wood gathering, or more indoor stuff if I have plenty of food and wood. Then when it starts getting dark I cook what rabbit (and/or additional deer) meat I have and boil some water. Late supper and into bed while the fires still warm for the rest of the night.