Custom difficulty

[Athoen]

Hello all,

I have been reading another player's suggestion for a personnal difficulty preference, and it struck me that we are quite many wanting to play the game with prefered rules.

As Hinterland cannot add a difficulty for each of us, why not create a new pannel for sanbox mode difficulty customization ?

For each category, we could choose between already existing rules (pilgrim, voyageur, stalker, , interloper) but that would allow us to mix them :

Possible categories :

• Harshness of the weather
• Available buildings (standing or burned down, prepper caches)
• Number of containers spawned (including plane cargo boxes)
• Spawning ot items inside buildings and containers
• Intestinal parasites coupled or not with
• Cabin fever
• Wildlife : number (coupled or not with the next one) including fishing
• Wildlife : behavior/damage done
• number of feats available
• ... any other one

For exemple, I would like to play stalker loot with voyageur wildlife, with intestinal parasites but not cabin fever (not immersive IMO)

So let me know what you think of it

Achievements are often disconnected from the difficulty so any one available in pilgrim would be available in custom mode. Any one available only at a specific difficulty would required to play the game with that difficulty setting

 

 

 

 

 

[StrayCat]

I TOTALLY support this suggestion. This would let players choose the way they want to play and the experience we want to have. In fact, that is WAY BETTER than my own suggestion. Players wanting a hardcore challenge would put all options on max level, contemplatives would get a quiet and rare wildlife, and hunting afficionados would get to hunt anything with large resources. And people wanting realism could put on their own definition of "realistic", and stop arguing over what is realistic or not on the forums. 

I also like the idea to have pre-determined difficulty settings (from pilgrim to interloper), for those who don't want to bother with fine tuning. The whole idea would be imo the best modification to TLD that could happen.

[Prestermatt]

I would enjoy this as well.  Kind of like the Tropico system.

[Black Star]

Nice idea, I'm with you! 

 

[StrayCat]

As I really think this idea is too good to sink in the depths of the forum, I would like to think about the variables that could be ajusted by the player. There should be only a few options, in order to keep it as simple as possible. Also, they should not include ay new features, only existing ones. Here is my first try :

• Weather : pilgrim-like - voyageur-like - interloper-like
• Wildlife presence : really scarce - scarce - normal
• Wildlife behaviour : quiet (usually flee) - normal - aggressive (attack on sight)
• Available buildings : rare (most are destroyed) - normal
• Loot in containers : scarce - normal
• Intestinal parasites : off - on
• Cabin fever : off - on
• Weapons availability : no weapons (bow & rifle) - normal

What do I have forgotten ?

[Fuarian]

5 hours ago, StrayCat said:

As I really think this idea is too good to sink in the depths of the forum, I would like to think about the variables that could be ajusted by the player. There should be only a few options, in order to keep it as simple as possible. Also, they should not include ay new features, only existing ones. Here is my first try :

• Weather : pilgrim-like - voyageur-like - interloper-like
• Wildlife presence : really scarce - scarce - normal
• Wildlife behaviour : quiet (usually flee) - normal - aggressive (attack on sight)
• Available buildings : rare (most are destroyed) - normal
• Loot in containers : scarce - normal
• Intestinal parasites : off - on
• Cabin fever : off - on
• Weapons availability : no weapons (bow & rifle) - normal

What do I have forgotten ?

Aurora Frequency, I know it's categorized as weather. But I'd like it to be customizable on it's own. 

Starting Gear; maybe you can choose which items to start with? Would make for good roleplays. Ex; Starting with a Rifle low on bullets at Trappers.

Availiable Loot; tools, food etc...

[CmdrDats]

Just to play a bit of devil's advocate here, the flipside of this is that you have a less common language to share with others: 'I survived 20 days in Voyageur' works better than 'I survived with almost voyageur with settings x,y,z'. It fragments the camaraderie behind having so few choices. Maybe not such a big deal, but thought it's worth mentioning.

That said, personally I would prefer an auto mode of sorts. Where the game learns my 'game strength'.. "figure out what will kill me, then dial it back a bit" - as Seinfeld would say. Because that would keep me on the edge of my seat a bit more - I had an experience recently, playing voyageur, where I'm getting quite cosy in the Trapper's Homestead, but decided to go loot the hydro dam. After trekking all the way there, I discovered hardly any loot. It felt a bit like I was playing on a slightly tougher mode suddenly, and it was rad.

[alunasmoon]

I love this idea so much 7daystodie has a similar system already in place and when it cam out i was amazing i was able to grow with the game a play and learn . adding more or taking away certain luxury's. love this idea!! 

[StrayCat]

On 14/08/2017 at 10:54 PM, Fuarian said:

Aurora Frequency, I know it's categorized as weather. But I'd like it to be customizable on it's own. 

Starting Gear; maybe you can choose which items to start with? Would make for good roleplays. Ex; Starting with a Rifle low on bullets at Trappers.

Availiable Loot; tools, food etc...

Good suggestion for aurora frequency. But for the starting gear, it may be too difficult to define it precisely. Maybe 3 settings could be enough : nothing - badly equiped - well equiped ? But starting with a rifle looks pretty overpowered, don't you think ?

20 hours ago, CmdrDats said:

Just to play a bit of devil's advocate here, the flipside of this is that you have a less common language to share with others: 'I survived 20 days in Voyageur' works better than 'I survived with almost voyageur with settings x,y,z'. It fragments the camaraderie behind having so few choices. Maybe not such a big deal, but thought it's worth mentioning.

That said, personally I would prefer an auto mode of sorts.

This could be answered with pre-defined difficulty settings. A simple box would let you get the usual game modes : choose "interloper", and the cursors would be but on the default values for this difficulty. Good choice for those who don't want to bother with fine settings. The automatic difficulty would be hard to create, I personnally think our suggestions to hinterland should be kept as simple as possible if we want them to be added to the game. 

[Mroz4k]

On 15. 8. 2017 at 1:06 PM, CmdrDats said:

Just to play a bit of devil's advocate here, the flipside of this is that you have a less common language to share with others: 'I survived 20 days in Voyageur' works better than 'I survived with almost voyageur with settings x,y,z'. It fragments the camaraderie behind having so few choices. Maybe not such a big deal, but thought it's worth mentioning.

That said, personally I would prefer an auto mode of sorts. Where the game learns my 'game strength'.. "figure out what will kill me, then dial it back a bit" - as Seinfeld would say. Because that would keep me on the edge of my seat a bit more - I had an experience recently, playing voyageur, where I'm getting quite cosy in the Trapper's Homestead, but decided to go loot the hydro dam. After trekking all the way there, I discovered hardly any loot. It felt a bit like I was playing on a slightly tougher mode suddenly, and it was rad.

Not in the slightest. Customizable games are one of the oldest game features, and it has never contributed to this sort of misscommunication.
You could still play normal Voyageur - or you would say you played custom mode very close to the Voyageur.  Easy enough to screenshot and post your settings, if you wish. 

If anything, this would be a blessing to the game - because the more detailed would the settings be, the more versatile the experience could get. Imagine there would be a mode that lets you select where you spawn and with how good of an equipment... you could create almost infinite amount of different challenges, going from an insanely OP fight-to-live scenarios to peaceful, bountiful exploration modes.

My basic idea would be that the customizable mode would have several (7 or so) major settings you could tweak to get particular difficulty, but also had an option to "further customize" them - which would then let you set everything in it manually. Being able to save and upload your "game settings saves" and could also work very well. This would open up an unlimited amount of community challenges.

[WanderingPalm]

I have always and will always support this idea. I have always wanted a version of Pilgrim that had the harsher condition and status decay that are in Voyageur and above modes. Sometimes I want a survival game that isn't about evading physical enemies (like wolves), but rather, struggling to survive the weather and my own instincts.

[Prestermatt]

6 minutes ago, WanderingPalm said:

I have always and will always support this idea. I have always wanted a version of Pilgrim that had the harsher condition and status decay that are in Voyageur and above modes. Sometimes I want a survival game that isn't about evading physical enemies (like wolves), but rather, struggling to survive the weather and my own instincts.

Me too.  Maybe if enough of us chime in, they'll implement it eventually.

[iloveyoutenderly]

11 hours ago, WanderingPalm said:

I have always and will always support this idea. I have always wanted a version of Pilgrim that had the harsher condition and status decay that are in Voyageur and above modes. Sometimes I want a survival game that isn't about evading physical enemies (like wolves), but rather, struggling to survive the weather and my own instincts.

I signed up just to reply on this post.

I really support this. I had this, and wanted this idea for almost an year.  Thing are different in long term survival (I personally survived more than 1000 days btw)

[DogFoodEaterPs4]

Just started a topic suggesting this exact topic, then thought, I bet someone else wants this. Found this topic, deleted mine. Totally agree.

...

It would be great for players to do a custom survivor build before you start a new game i.e. pick your play experience in finer detail.

E.g.

Loot drops - Interloper
Cabin fever - Off (If I want to sit in a cottage and drink sodas for 9 days well that is what I am going to do)
Animal Aggression - Stalker
Sprain Limbs - ON
Weather - Interloper
Starting Gear - Voyager
Starting Health - 25%
Food poisoning - ON
Etc etc.

[Athoen]

So this has been done in the latest update.

I really want to thank Hinterland team for listenning to us !

My next gaming experience in TLD will sure be special.

[Prestermatt]

Looks like we're going to have to find something new to gripe about.  I can live with that.  Can't wait to check out the new update.