Day 1 (SPOILERS)

[ajb1978]

29 minutes ago, DrOctopu5 said:

But I feel like I'm screwed now. Crumbling Highway is blocked off, and I'm wondering if I should've chosen another base. I could load up as much as I can and head to PV, but that sounds like a bad move at this point. 

The quonset garage is  one of the most dangerous bases to choose, unless you're playing on Pilgrim.  So you have definitely handicapped yourself by choosing that as a base.  I would strongly suggest getting the heck out of there.  Move to Jackrabbit Island.  That's a more tenable location to survive from.  I mean you're not gonna need to cook, so who cares if it has a fireplace or not right?  You've got that fishing hut nearby to boil water if you need any.

[JAFO]

1 minute ago, ajb1978 said:

Move to Jackrabbit Island.  That's a more tenable location to survive from.  I mean you're not gonna need to cook, so who cares if it has a fireplace or not right?  You've got that fishing hut nearby to boil water if you need any.

Jackrabbit Island should be safe enough.. without any rabbits in the game, they've no reason to come up onto the island. And it would be a good vantage-point to watch the mongrels crawling all over the ice. No need to go to the fishing hut for water.. just set a fire in the fenced-in area outside the side-door. That way you've got two hotplates instead of just one.

[JAFO]

8 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

My guess is that the 2-hour timer will only run when you are outdoors, but who knows.

The timer runs when you're indoors as well.

[Mixxut]

38 minutes ago, ajb1978 said:

The quonset garage is  one of the most dangerous bases to choose, unless you're playing on Pilgrim.  So you have definitely handicapped yourself by choosing that as a base.  I would strongly suggest getting the heck out of there.  Move to Jackrabbit Island.  That's a more tenable location to survive from.  I mean you're not gonna need to cook, so who cares if it has a fireplace or not right?  You've got that fishing hut nearby to boil water if you need any.

Haha, I'm right now at the garage, and I can't wait to try to move to ML from there. If there aren't at least 10 wolves right outside the garage I'm going be dissapointed

[Yaki]

Okay so I made my second day and got the badge - yeah!

As I killed my first toon yesterday by slipping off the ravine I had to restart and managed to find both pumpkins in CH and to gather some basic supply from the buildings. I stored my supplies at the fishing huts which was actually a good choice as I did not encounter any wolves at all. So I waited for some clear night sky to head to the small hut at the camping ground, idled a bit in the woods and finally decided to try the ravine again. Lucky me I got still no wolves. I heard some howling but there were no predators on my way.

This time I walked veeeeery carefully and made it

There were no wolves in the ravine btw. So if you´re looking for some easy place to stay....

Having arived in ML I thoroughly searched the dam and spent some time on reading and sewing. The only wolf I saw was when I left the dam afterwards. But the wolf didn´t notice me and just went on. I then decided to stop for today as I wanna try for the second bagde. The only sad thing is that I left my flashlight in CH. But I´ve got a rifle, plenty of ammo and severeal flares so that I might survive tomorrow.

Good luck for all!

[reginaphalange]

15 hours ago, Ape88 said:

I didn't want to test my luck going through the ravine. It gets my rl fear of heights going when it is daylight in game. I don't want to even risk it in the dark. Plus I was pretty loaded up on gear, so I went through the mine to PV....

So far haven't found a pumpkin in PV. Got both from CH. Any advice on what areas to check?

It was fine for me. I went during high visibility and saw the rails just fine. My monitor was at full brightness. (I also FORGOT about that damn broken track, but it was fine lol. I consider it the point of no return after crossing it.)

[reginaphalange]

10 hours ago, Pillock said:

The only thing I might expect is that perhaps there will be new lantern-type spawns that weren't there on Day 1. Perhaps more candy bars? But 'general' loot, perhaps not.

I've still only been to sea-level parts of CH and I've got millions of everything: matches, warm clothes, lantern, fuel, flares, gun&ammo, etc., and I haven't eaten a single one of my candybars yet.  So I'm wondering whether to settle down and wait out the coming hardships. But it's 2 real-time hours, and I'm not sure I want to spend that time sitting indoors doing nothing, even if I could! And the one thing I haven't found yet is a hatchet or a hammer! I'm not putting Day 1 to bed until I get one, because tomorrow is Wolfpocalypse and I'm damned if I'm going out there against them without anything decent to fight back with. I don't know what the struggle severity settings will be, but it doesn't seem worth the risk!

By the time I reached the camp office in ML I had 12 candy bars, cattails, a lifetime supply of tea and coffee...

yeah. tonight, as there are wolves on the ice, aside from going outside now and then to look for sticks, i'm bunkering and just running down the clock. 

I do have a prybar and fish tackle so I can try to fish if there even are fish in the water... but I just don't have to. it's pitch black in the camp office so I do need to use my lantern, but I've got so much lamp oil in j-cans.... I'm just gonna hibernate, i think lol....

[Drifter Man]

2 hours ago, JAFO said:

The timer runs when you're indoors as well.

Yes... I'm disappointed, the "challenge" rewards passive behavior. You don't have to do almost anything, even if you don't have supplies from Day 1 - I tried another game starting from Day 2 and survived by doing little more than just waiting. There's no challenge at all.

[amorphea]

urgh my very equipped character from day 1 just died . She got ambushed by about 4 wolves while already being on low health. I distracted two fought one off but the other one grabbed right away as I came out of the fight. Feels bad... 

[amorphea]

urgh my very equipped character from day 1 just died . She got ambushed by about 4 wolves while already being on low health. I distracted two fought one off but the other one grabbed right away as I came out of the fight. Feels bad... 

[BareSkin]

2 hours ago, stratvox said:

Telling you about your situation is not the TLD way.

Exactly. When Hinterland takes my hand to help me play, I stop playing.

[BareSkin]

Just now, Drifter Man said:

Yes... I'm disappointed, the "challenge" rewards passive behavior. You don't have to do almost anything, even if you don't have supplies from Day 1 - I tried another game starting from Day 2 and survived by doing little more than just waiting. There's no challenge at all.

It's been said that Hinterland actively encouraged streaming and going all out public on the event. Nobody wants to scare customers for real. That's a good introduction to the game IMO, but sure, there is no challenge for veterans, since they're not the event's target.

[BareSkin]

1 hour ago, JAFO said:

Jackrabbit Island should be safe enough.. without any rabbits in the game, they've no reason to come up onto the island. And it would be a good vantage-point to watch the mongrels crawling all over the ice. No need to go to the fishing hut for water.. just set a fire in the fenced-in area outside the side-door. That way you've got two hotplates instead of just one.

I'm there too. That's were my survivor was when the Catastrophe happened. It's Grandma's house. Now Grandma passed away, and I like to come back there every year, many childhood memories.

[Drifter Man]

20 minutes ago, BareSkin said:

It's been said that Hinterland actively encouraged streaming and going all out public on the event. Nobody wants to scare customers for real. That's a good introduction to the game IMO, but sure, there is no challenge for veterans, since they're not the event's target.

I didn't expect 4DON to be hard of course. I'm not complaining about it being easy. I'm complaining that the optimum solution to the challenge is to park your survivor somewhere safe and go read a book for 2 hours IRL. You're better off doing nothing than doing something. That's not a great introduction either.

"There's snowhere to hide", they said...

[Cr41g]

I just barely had two hours to squeeze together yesterday for my first day... never got out of CH...did find my two JOL's, rifle and flashlight... and about 11 rounds... some cattails and a bit of deer meat. I have more tea and coffee than I think I have ever had... and may come to rely on it for the calories... sadly and to my misfortune when time ran out for me I was in Coastal townsite... house closest to the Quonset... day 2 will be a sea of wolves in the townsite.

[Dan_]

4 minutes ago, Drifter Man said:

I didn't expect 4DON to be hard of course. I'm not complaining about it being easy. I'm complaining that the optimum solution to the challenge is to park your survivor somewhere safe and go read a book for 2 hours IRL. You're better off doing nothing than doing something. That's not a great introduction either.

"There's snowhere to hide", they said...

This 1000x. I haven't had the chance of playing the second day yet, but from the looks of it sadly it's not very hard. 

I was expecting them to give us permanent cabin fever, and ultra cold buildings so we had to keep a fire when inside. 

What's the condition loss from a wolf struggle feels like? Stalker or Interloper?  

[ajb1978]

It does feel a little like cheating to just boil water in real time to pass the two hours, but I mean it's a solid tactic to winning. I spent literally all day yesterday gathering supplies so I wouldn't have to worry about the last three days. 

That said I might go on a wolf hunt just for kicks, after my 2nd day is complete. I've got 73 rounds, 12 flares, and 14 arrows all just begging to put a hole in something. 

Edited to fix a typo. I'm writing this on my phone and autocorrect hates me. 

[reginaphalange]

7 minutes ago, ajb1978 said:

It does feel a little like cheating to just boil water in real time to pass the two hours, but I mean it's a solid tactic to winning. I spent literally all day yesterday gathering supplies so I wouldn't have to worry about the last three days. 

That said I might go on a wolf hunt just for kicks, after my 2nd day is complete. I've got 73 rounds, 12 flares, and 14 arrows all just begging to put a guile in something. 

Exactly my plan. And then at times I didn't even run the clock while sitting at the computer. I got really lucky when it came to finding candy bars and cattails (and even some frozen deer meat) so when the weather was crap or there were wolves about why would I bother going outside? I go get some wood and come back in. It isn't dissimilar to my long game; I'm always timid of wolves and don't have many rounds to waste if I miss when shooting.

[stapeliad]

4 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

The quonset garage is  one of the most dangerous bases to choose, unless you're playing on Pilgrim.  So you have definitely handicapped yourself by choosing that as a base.  I would strongly suggest getting the heck out of there.  Move to Jackrabbit Island.  That's a more tenable location to survive from.  I mean you're not gonna need to cook, so who cares if it has a fireplace or not right?  You've got that fishing hut nearby to boil water if you need any.

I read this with a heavy heart... that's where I am...
Yesterday I scoured every location in CH and got 7 rounds of ammo and some candy bars which are of course gone. I got SO MANY MORE candy bars in ML....

So I have to eat the wolves to survive.... I'll probably get intestinal parasites.  Maybe I'll try fishing if I can make it to the hut....

The loot tables are definitely not consistent... in my ML game I never did find the rifle but I have a ton of other stuff.

Overall this is a great event but I wish the loot was consistent.  I'm really scrounging on nothing in my first game...second game tons of stuff but no rifle which is a problem.

[NardoLoopa]

1 hour ago, Drifter Man said:

Yes... I'm disappointed, the "challenge" rewards passive behavior. You don't have to do almost anything, even if you don't have supplies from Day 1 - I tried another game starting from Day 2 and survived by doing little more than just waiting. There's no challenge at all.

I'd guess that the first-badge is the "easy" badge.  The "Thanks for Playing".  The second badge is the "Challenge".  (My guess).

If you do play the shut-in for all of Day-2, it may come as some disadvantage on day-3/day-4.  I'm sure whatever the case is, if you were able to stock up heavily, it's still not going to be a challenge for you.  It's pretty hard to make a limited-time challenge for EVERYONE (people who play Pilgrim/Voyager to Interloper/Deadman).  And also make it challenging for people who loot all the maps, vs people who play 2hrs.

--

I'm in Trappers'.  Looted most of CH but no Jack-os. Then to PV.  Found two.  Now I have two moose-bags, if anyone is in need (unfortunately, they don't stack).  Found two in ML, but only flarepistol and flashlight.  So, with a real-time hour left before roll-over, I decided to make the trek back to CH to look in the two placed I hadn't looted, but this thread reported seeing lanterns.  Crossed the Ravine in semi-fog.  Found a Rifle at bear park (now my 40rounds have some use).  Crossed the Ravine back in a blizzard.  Cut some wood for Trappers with 2-mins to spare.

BTW: not sure anyone else had this, but upon exiting Tappers on Day-1, I heard a menacing GROWL.  First one sounded like bear, subsequent ones were louder and sounded like Wolf.  Since I was cutting it close as it was, I spent a good few minutes with heart-racing, keeping an eye out for wolves appearing.

(still have Day-2 to play after work)

[NardoLoopa]

6 minutes ago, stapeliad said:

So I have to eat the wolves to survive.... I'll probably get intestinal parasites.

I'd highly doubt this.  The game seems to be on Pilgrim-like settings.  I spent 8-days game-time and ate 3 candy-bars.  And that was basically to avoid the red-line, not to improve condition.  Also, you may have noticed that spraining an ankle was kinda difficult to do (at least that's what I noticed).

You can certainly last Day-2 w/o eating at all.  Might hose yourself for 3/4 though.

[Dan_]

I'm guessing it's more of a stalker type game. You need 60 calories to sleep an hour, so 720 for the full 12. I have not played Stalker in god knows how long but I'm pretty sure those are consistent numbers with an stalker playthrough.

Downed the first 4 wolves by ML, they respond to bait and are not overly aggressive like the aurora wolves. 

@Drifter Man the madman that he is, suggested we should craft 1000 wolf coats in celebration. Can we join forces as a community and tally up the coats by the end of the 31st?

[DaveMcD]

9 minutes ago, NardoLoopa said:

BTW: not sure anyone else had this, but upon exiting Tappers on Day-1, I heard a menacing GROWL.  First one sounded like bear, subsequent ones were louder and sounded like Wolf.  Since I was cutting it close as it was, I spent a good few minutes with heart-racing, keeping an eye out for wolves appearing.

(still have Day-2 to play after work)

Have had this before in normal play and also seen it in YouTube vids etc. I suspect its normally from a dead bear scenario. i.e. you shot bear go inside it dies off screen. You come out and the game has to spawn the bear and immediately set its state to dead (shroedingers bear anyone?) Which cues the bear dying growl or possibly all the animal dying noises throughout the game world all at once which makes it sound weird and damn scary.

The fact it did it to you in this mode without a bear makes me think its either from other dead animal spawns or there's a ghost bear in the world who's always there and dead 

[DaveMcD]

53 minutes ago, Drifter Man said:

I didn't expect 4DON to be hard of course. I'm not complaining about it being easy. I'm complaining that the optimum solution to the challenge is to park your survivor somewhere safe and go read a book for 2 hours IRL. You're better off doing nothing than doing something. That's not a great introduction either.

"There's snowhere to hide", they said...

Couple of thoughts-

You and seem to be in a similar situation where we had a decent amount of time and looted the whole game world (I skipped Milton) on Day 1.

I think a lot of players had more limited time and maybe looted the starter map before trying to hole up in a place for the changeover. Many people dont even have rifles or much food so their need to continue exploring and looting is larger and day 2 has been more nerve wracking and challenging.

I'll hold over full comment till the end of the event and see how the rest of it scales but perhaps a better scenario would be to drip feed the maps and better gear over the days i.e. day one is locked to CH. Day 2 opens up ML, day 3 opens up PV. Day 4 opens up Milton. Basically after 2 hours of play you've pretty much looted all there is on a map and cant overstretch too much and then the next day you have need to explore the world more to get next level gear etc.

Last point, I still think this is fun and a cool idea for an event I'm prepared to cut a lot of slack for it not being a big challenge if it turns out that way because I overrhought it and went full prepper

If we come up with cool ideas of how to make it less 'gameable' next year then I'm up for that as well. This game is the best value fun I've managed to find

[Morrick]

2 hours ago, Drifter Man said:

Yes... I'm disappointed, the "challenge" rewards passive behavior. You don't have to do almost anything, even if you don't have supplies from Day 1 - I tried another game starting from Day 2 and survived by doing little more than just waiting. There's no challenge at all.

 I see your point, but consider my situation: while I managed to explore about 70% of Coastal Highway, I sadly didn't find much food. As I'm not particularly fond of wolf hunting/fighting, my plan for Day 2 was exactly that — be as passive as possible. Except I only have one and a quarter of a candy bar left. I'll have to go out and look for some food at some point. I could skip Day 2 entirely, of course, but I don't think Day 3 is going to be easier...

By the way, I'm in Pleasant Valley on Signal Hill. Anyone knows how's the wolf situation there usually? I have the feeling I've painted myself in a corner, haha.

– Rick