Will the real Interloper please stand up?

[Timber Wolf]

I haven't really enjoyed the challenge that Interloper provides, so I started brainstorming and came up with an idea that I think could make for a better long term game play experience, help reduce late game boredom and prevent hibernation.

Divide the game world into 5 different zones, defined as follows:

1. Mystery Lake (ML, The Ravine)
2. Coastal Highway (CH, Cinder Hills Mine)
3. Desolation Point (DP, Old Island Connector, No. 3 Coal Mine)
4. Pleasant Valley (PV, Cave to Winding River, Winding River)
5. Timberwolf Mountain

Each day that you are in a zone, a day is added to a cumulative count for that zone.  Meaning if you are in one zone for 5 days, then go to another zone and then come back to the first zone, then you will be at 6 days.  Once your count for a zone gets up to around 2 weeks (let's say 12 - 16 days and call it Level 1) then one wolf will be assigned to your immediate area.  This wolf will behave using the same mechanics as the Old Bear does in The Hunted Part One and will follow you until you leave the zone.  However, if you move to a different part of the zone then it will take a while for the wolf to catch up, but it will definitely find you after two full days.  

If you kill this wolf and you remain in the same zone, the next day he will show back up again which will make it a continued threat.  If you stay on the map for another week (let's say 5 - 9 days and call that Level 2), then you will have 3 wolves constantly stalking you.  And if you stay for one more week beyond that (Level 3) then the radius around you will be reduced, so the wolves will be right on top of you as soon as you are outside.  The wolves should be much tougher, so that the player cannot exploit their presence.  To that end, being at Level 3 should essentially mean guaranteed death upon going outside.

Once you have reached Level 1, the wolf will start stalking you as soon as you come back to that zone.  They will continue to do this until you have stayed outside of that zone for about 2 weeks.  If you reached Level 2, then you will have to wait an additional week before you can return without any wolves stalking you.  And if you reached Level 3, then it will be one more week on top of that.

This would force the player to move periodically and would make it impossible to hole up in one spot indefinitely.  You could also make it so any zone you haven't been in for 2 weeks is reset to zero days on the counter.  That would make this a serious threat, but one that could be completely avoided by staying ahead the wolves.  There could be audio cues that you are getting close to reaching a Level, like wolves howling more often and/or louder.

There could be additional tweaks that could enhance the game play, such as shortening the amount of time between Levels in a particular zone like DP or randomly making some of these wolves especially lethal.

To add even more variety, blizzards could be used in the same way to force a player to move to a different zone.  When starting a new game, 3 of the zones could be randomly selected as "Wolf Zones" and the other 2 would be "Blizzard Zones".  The weather would get worse in a similar way to how it does in the Whiteout challenge and essentially impossible to go anywhere once you have reached Level 3.

Any or all of these numbers could be tuned as needed or to enhance game play and the effect could be lessened down through the different difficulty levels.

What do you think?

[EternityTide]

Sounds to me like a very contrived way for the game to control the players actions, which should not be the case.

The player controls the game, the game simply sets challenges for the player to overcome.

It has been said before that HS do not mind their players bedding in and living off the locality for an extended period of time. I personally don't have an issue with this playstyle either (I do, however, take objection to people attempting to hibernate - something which is now impossible thanks to cabin fever - or treating condition like an extension of your hunger bar - IRL, you wouldn't starve yourself to the point of near death, only to eat a load of food and then carry on as normal).

While HS seems to hold the "nomadic survivor" playstyle as their ideal, they don't try to force you into a mold, they allow players to experiment within the limits of the mechanics. Interloper should be the same. Let players chose when to move to a new region, not some arbitrary timer. Besides, by giving them an "eternal stalking wolf", you're ensuring that they have a plentiful supply of meat at all times. Not exactly grueling.

[MarrowStone]

We need calories to go in the negatives while people starve. And have them slowly weaken, That way you cant hibernate.

[Timber Wolf]

On 10/24/2016 at 5:33 PM, EternityTide said:

Sounds to me like a very contrived way for the game to control the players actions, which should not be the case.

The player controls the game, the game simply sets challenges for the player to overcome.

It has been said before that HS do not mind their players bedding in and living off the locality for an extended period of time. I personally don't have an issue with this playstyle either (I do, however, take objection to people attempting to hibernate - something which is now impossible thanks to cabin fever - or treating condition like an extension of your hunger bar - IRL, you wouldn't starve yourself to the point of near death, only to eat a load of food and then carry on as normal).

While HS seems to hold the "nomadic survivor" playstyle as their ideal, they don't try to force you into a mold, they allow players to experiment within the limits of the mechanics. Interloper should be the same. Let players chose when to move to a new region, not some arbitrary timer. Besides, by giving them an "eternal stalking wolf", you're ensuring that they have a plentiful supply of meat at all times. Not exactly grueling.

 

Hello @EternityTide !

I understand where you are coming from, but in a way everything about the game is contrived.  I  think dramatically reducing resources and removing many items from the game is a pretty contrived way to create a greater challenge for the player.  It makes me think of how some card games are poorly programmed and don't offer much of a challenge, so the developers simply skew the odds in the favor of the game to create a "harder difficulty level." 

I also personally do not find it at all entertaining to play a game that is all about resource management and resource micro-management.  I want to have some fun!  Which is why I tend to have a pretty rough and tumble play style.  It is also why I have become so bored with playing a standard sandbox game, that I now only start new runs in The Hunted Part One challenge mode, so that I have the Old Bear constantly hunting me down.  It add so much more excitement to the game and forces me to come up with alternative strategies to survive.

The concept I suggested would keep us players on our toes for the entire run, no matter how many days/weeks/months/years it lasts.  And I was trying to come up with a way to do it that would require relatively little work on the part of the development team.  The mechanics for the Old Bear already exist, as do the mechanics for worsening weather.

I was just trying to think of ways to keep this game fresh, because after you learn the maps and master the game mechanics then you will inevitably end up in the same place after around 50 days.  And that place is called Boredom!

[Timber Wolf]

Hi @MarrowStone !

On 10/25/2016 at 1:05 AM, MarrowStone said:

We need calories to go in the negatives while people starve. And have them slowly weaken, That way you cant hibernate.

I like this idea a lot.  I think I once saw a post that suggested something similar.  Instead of having to "fill up" the bars, the player should try to keep them all in the middle.  And if they do things like starve themselves, then the bar falls too far to the left or right, then it would have an adverse effect on the player.

[Hotzn]

On 24.10.2016 at 11:37 PM, Timber Wolf said:

I haven't really enjoyed the challenge that Interloper provides, so I started brainstorming and came up with an idea that I think could make for a better long term game play experience, help reduce late game boredom and prevent hibernation.

Divide the game world into 5 different zones, defined as follows:

1. Mystery Lake (ML, The Ravine)
2. Coastal Highway (CH, Cinder Hills Mine)
3. Desolation Point (DP, Old Island Connector, No. 3 Coal Mine)
4. Pleasant Valley (PV, Cave to Winding River, Winding River)
5. Timberwolf Mountain

Each day that you are in a zone, a day is added to a cumulative count for that zone.  Meaning if you are in one zone for 5 days, then go to another zone and then come back to the first zone, then you will be at 6 days.  Once your count for a zone gets up to around 2 weeks (let's say 12 - 16 days and call it Level 1) then one wolf will be assigned to your immediate area.  This wolf will behave using the same mechanics as the Old Bear does in The Hunted Part One and will follow you until you leave the zone.  However, if you move to a different part of the zone then it will take a while for the wolf to catch up, but it will definitely find you after two full days.  

If you kill this wolf and you remain in the same zone, the next day he will show back up again which will make it a continued threat.  If you stay on the map for another week (let's say 5 - 9 days and call that Level 2), then you will have 3 wolves constantly stalking you.  And if you stay for one more week beyond that (Level 3) then the radius around you will be reduced, so the wolves will be right on top of you as soon as you are outside.  The wolves should be much tougher, so that the player cannot exploit their presence.  To that end, being at Level 3 should essentially mean guaranteed death upon going outside.

Once you have reached Level 1, the wolf will start stalking you as soon as you come back to that zone.  They will continue to do this until you have stayed outside of that zone for about 2 weeks.  If you reached Level 2, then you will have to wait an additional week before you can return without any wolves stalking you.  And if you reached Level 3, then it will be one more week on top of that.

This would force the player to move periodically and would make it impossible to hole up in one spot indefinitely.  You could also make it so any zone you haven't been in for 2 weeks is reset to zero days on the counter.  That would make this a serious threat, but one that could be completely avoided by staying ahead the wolves.  There could be audio cues that you are getting close to reaching a Level, like wolves howling more often and/or louder.

There could be additional tweaks that could enhance the game play, such as shortening the amount of time between Levels in a particular zone like DP or randomly making some of these wolves especially lethal.

To add even more variety, blizzards could be used in the same way to force a player to move to a different zone.  When starting a new game, 3 of the zones could be randomly selected as "Wolf Zones" and the other 2 would be "Blizzard Zones".  The weather would get worse in a similar way to how it does in the Whiteout challenge and essentially impossible to go anywhere once you have reached Level 3.

Any or all of these numbers could be tuned as needed or to enhance game play and the effect could be lessened down through the different difficulty levels.

What do you think?

I like this concept very much. I doubt that everybody would like it this way, but it could be another challenge mode or an option. Or... there could be something like a "sandbox story" mode - where certain "storylines" are added to the sandbox at random. So one storyline could be the "stalking wolves" you describe, another storyline could be the worsening weather (or the "long-lasting whiteout") and so on (the "Old Bear" could be another one). There could also be randomized combinations.

I would like to direct attention to the game "Rimworld" which claims to have an integrated "storyteller". That concept seems immensely interesting to me, although I have to admit I have no clue how it works in detail in said "Rimworld". But I would imagine that we get larger events or chains of events chosen at random that generate some kind of (albeit generic to a certain degree)... well, story. Of course it would be cool if the mechanism were so sublime it would be hard to recognize the different storylines in the game...

[ChillPlayer]

While I like the idea of some "forcement" to keep players moving around I see a huge fault in the motivation for doing so. The game is sending me a wolf which I can exploit to hunt deers, free of charge? Well thank you very much

Since I play TLD wolves are a means to get meat first and a nuisance easy delt with second. With deer and wolves near by I don't even need a bow for hunting, fishing hut is all that's needed. Some versions ago they changed spawn points of deer and wolves and having both of them in a place is like a small jackpot. With the OPs suggested mechanic you wouldn't have to worry about that very much.

In a different thread I proposed a simpler mechanic which would achieve the same goal - keeping people on the move - without giving them free wolves: a regional cabin fever that kicks in if you spend too much time on the same map/radius/region with severe enough consequences which you wouldn't want to suffer from.

On the other hand, a mechanic is already in place to force players to move. Try spending 20-30 days in Interloper past day 50 in the same place and you will ultimately have to move to a different place. Reason being: lack of Reclaimed Wood sources and too cold weather to forage without a fire outside combined with the risk of Cabin Fever.

This just happend to me, I was feeling very comfortable in my hut on Jackrabbit Island, after 15 days of waiting the wolf pack even returned, so I could finally get more hides for my coat, when I suddenly had to realize that I pretty much destroyed all the furniture in all of CH, scattered around the map there might be about 20 pieces left. So I have to move, probably back to PV where most of the houses are still untouched by me or to ML where I could still use the comfy Fishing Huts.

A number that was floating around on the forums for the days we are supposed to survive in Interloper max was 200 days. I am pretty sure it's possible to survive much longer but given this scale, scarcety of wood, cold weather and Cabin Fever actually works, I don't see a huge necessity to force players to keep moving.

[Wastelander]

Noone is wrong basically here, and I think that's the underlying problem with this post: There is no wrong style of playing the game. Of course, there are inherently wrong way of playing the game, i.e. the ones that get us killed. Beyond that, though, everything else is valid. The nomadic lifestyle is just as 'correct' as the homesteading one, and there are good points both validating and falsifying each other. I, personally, think that an artificial threat devised just to force a player into adopting a specific style of playing will take a lot from the game's current sandbox-feeling.

[Timber Wolf]

I wasn't trying to imply there is anything "wrong" with the game or any particular play style when I entered the title for this post - it just popped into my head.  I was merely brainstorming on idea that I think would add a great deal more entertainment to playing the game.  I'm sure it wouldn't be everybody's cup of herbal tea, but as was also suggested it could be another game mode.

Furthermore, it would not be an artificial threat, but rather an already existing threat that intensifies.  I realize the backstory of the "event" is the explanation for why the wolves don't behave as real world wolves actually do, but that doesn't mean they can't still become generally aware of your presence and become increasingly more hostile the longer you stay in an area.

Also, consider what the word Interloper actually means.  As defined by Websters: "Interloper - a person who is not wanted or welcome by the other people in a situation or place." 

This sounds an awful lot like the kind of thing I am suggesting and not so much what the Interloper game experience is like.

 

[Wastelander]

I think I have to apologize here - I may have sounded a lot more hostile than I entended, so yeah, sorry for that. Still cool? 

[Timber Wolf]

No problem at all. 

I just want to make sure my position, which is the pursuit of ever more entertaining and long lasting ways to enjoy this fantastic game, was not being misinterpreted as a complaint of what I find wrong with the game.

I expect the developers to continue to follow the vision that they have for the game.  Just as I will continue to push the limits of the game they create and will continue to find alternative approaches to the game play that is offered.