Game gets easier as you go. Counter-balances?

[cekivi]

Welcome (back) to the forums @continuity

[vimrich]

I'd prefer having more objectives in the mid to late game, rather than just being harder. I play on Voyager pretty much all the time, because I don't find "hard" mode to be hard, but just tedious - it takes more time and more exploring/risks, but you end up in the same place. "Hard" to me should mean you get more of a sense of progress.

I'm guessing in Story Mode, where you might have to go harvest car batteries to restart the radio tower, those are the things that would make the late game more interesting. Long term goals should reflect things a survivor would really want after the basics were covered.  Examples:

improving a structure - with an indoor stove (fire barrel more likely) so that it makes a safer weigh station. Tons of investment of time and materials ok here (e.g. to create a exhaust pipe/chimney) but for long term pay off not just in game, but as a player - you made the post apocalyptic world a nicer place to survive in.

hot bath - require tons of wood and melted snow (and a house with a tub) but collect enough and you get to refresh in a hot bath for some long term morale/health benefits.

luxury meal - something that requires multiple ingredients, work to pull off, and similar to hot bath in effect. There's a reason the pilgrims held that first thanksgiving after they all almost starved. 

renewables - right now, i figure medicine is the limit. No matter how safe you are, food poisoning will strike eventually, and after enough incidents you'll be out of mushrooms and antibiotics. Maybe I can build something or do something to a stump so that if I come back in 30 days, a new mushroom will have grown in some small percentage of the time. Long term tasks and goals, but that give me hope and a reason to go on. The main reason I quit games after 200 days or so is knowing there is no way make in game life better.

wolf/animal monitoring - not pets or taming, think more companions like in the great movie Never Cry Wolf. People who are isolated do things like name certain wolves, track them and refuse to hunt them and find a sense of purpose in having them around. We already all do this with "Fluffy" in some ways, but make it a real game thing somehow.

nature walks/discovery - Dick Proenneke did that in Alone in the Wilderness. similar to befriending/monitoring animals. People who go live for long time in the wilderness get to care about their new wild home.

Lots of these probably relate some sanity or morale system, which I've heard hints about. I think that's the place to go. 

[Ruruwawa]

2 hours ago, vimrich said:

I'd prefer having more objectives in the mid to late game, rather than just being harder. I play on Voyager pretty much all the time, because I don't find "hard" mode to be hard, but just tedious - it takes more time and more exploring/risks, but you end up in the same place. "Hard" to me should mean you get more of a sense of progress.

Nice job describing how I feel about Stalker, too.  I do keep one Stalker sandbox slot for the "first few days" experience.  I reroll it often.  Not because I die but because the tedium gets to me.

I love your long term goals suggestions.   Not only do they add something to do, but they would (hopefully) add more risk.  The usual out-of-doors risks due to more travel, but perhaps also some risks specific to the items you need to track down.