Day 1 (SPOILERS)

[ajb1978]

GAH!!  That Twilight badge unlocking legit jump-scared me...

[Morrick]

10 minutes ago, DaveMcD said:

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.

I think this would have been a great idea, actually. In my experience, the loot found in Coastal Highway only was rather disappointing, except for a few pieces of decent clothing. Going into Day 2 by limiting exploration within Coastal Highway on Day 1 would have made survival a bit more interesting and also put most of the players in the same boat, so to speak.

–Rick

[DaveMcD]

9 minutes ago, Morrick said:

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

Between signal hill and the entry back to ML can be a bit wolfy under interloper and probably stalker settings.

The wolves are still scared by a campfire so make sure you are set up for an emergency quick fire (it doesnt have to finish lighting before scaring them but you don't want to risk it failing before they are scared). Trick is not to panic and try not to take them on in high wind. Use the keyboard shortcut if you're on a desktop machine to avoid faffing about with menus and be aware that the ground needs to be fairly flat to put a fire down. Also crawling past is fine as is throwing rocks to lure them away. Be patient and hold your nerve. Good luck

[stapeliad]

38 minutes ago, DaveMcD said:

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.

Maybe this is why so many people have so much stuff.... and I have mostly nothing.  I only looted CH and that took a really long time... idk how it is even possible to go through all the maps in one real-time day just because of the time it takes to walk around.  Not to mention carrying everything- even bare necessities- gets heavy.

I agree, zone restricting would be good for this type of event and also having everything needed as a guarantee would also be good. (I mean guaranteed rifle and flashlight).  That being said, I'm glad they expanded it this year from last year.

[ajb1978]

28 minutes ago, Morrick said:

In my experience, the loot found in Coastal Highway only was rather disappointing, except for a few pieces of decent clothing.

CH turned up plenty of low to mid-tier stuff, and I was quickly able to overcome the cold and put together basic provisions.  Found some rabbitskin mitts by a jackolantern though so that was nice.  Broke down everything I didn't want to carry, read all the books I'd found, then I hauled the scrap to the ML camp office.  ML turned up an expedition parka and an ear wrap, and by the time I'd done a pass around PV I was pretty well loaded out with a second expedition parka, second ear wrap, and cowichan sweater.  Then I personally ran out of steam and never got around to looting Milton.  I just returned to the camp office, slept off the starvation/exhaustion damage, and called it a night.   I've got enough to get me through 4DON easily.

[ajb1978]

5 minutes ago, stapeliad said:

idk how it is even possible to go through all the maps in one real-time day just because of the time it takes to walk around. 

Even walking around starving and exhausted, I didn't end up having enough time myself.  I was thorough in CH and ML, did a quick pass through PV, and didn't have time to do Milton.  Well, I probably could have, but I'd been playing since the wee hours of the morning, and I was just done.  Still got a really nice haul though.

[stapeliad]

Can i have some of your ammo......?

[DaveMcD]

8 minutes ago, stapeliad said:

I agree, zone restricting would be good for this type of event and also having everything needed as a guarantee would also be good. (I mean guaranteed rifle and flashlight).  That being said, I'm glad they expanded it this year from last year.

Do you mean guaranteed as in you start with them or guaranteed to spawn on the map? I would actually strongly disagree about getting guaranteed gear (starting with that is). Half the thrill is in trying to find them and the worry you might not. I had assumed the rifle and torch do spawn on the CH map. I found 2 of each all up

[stapeliad]

guaranteed spawning on the map.

[Morrick]

2 minutes ago, ajb1978 said:

CH turned up plenty of low to mid-tier stuff, and I was quickly able to overcome the cold and put together basic provisions.  Found some rabbitskin mitts by a jackolantern though so that was nice.  Broke down everything I didn't want to carry, read all the books I'd found, then I hauled the scrap to the ML camp office.  ML turned up an expedition parka and an ear wrap, and by the time I'd done a pass around PV I was pretty well loaded out with a second expedition parka, second ear wrap, and cowichan sweater.  Then I personally ran out of steam and never got around to looting Milton.  I just returned to the camp office, slept off the starvation/exhaustion damage, and called it a night.   I've got enough to get me through 4DON easily.

Yes, reading the comments here, it was a mistake not trying to head for Mystery Lake as soon as my clothing allowed. I admit, moving around in darkness (even with a flare or a lantern in some difficult points) was harder for me than I expected. Probably because when I play the regular sandboxes, I'm an almost exclusively day traveller. For this reason, going to Mystery Lake through the Ravine sounded intimidating, and the fact that I encountered a lot of overcast/foggy weather didn't help. When I finally found the courage to head to Pleasant Valley through the Mine, I took advantage of a very clear moonlit period, but it was too late in Day 1 to loot the region. Sigh! 

[Ape88]

2 hours 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. 

LOL! When it was nearing the time for it to turn to the 2nd day of the event, I had just gotten my character ready and hunkered down in the Trapper's cabin...  After having her read all the great books she found and collecting tons of wood, and boiling some water, I ended up falling asleep waiting for 11 pm to come. My boyfriend woke me on party chat just after 11 pm came.

[henroe32]

I really hope Fluffy isn’t back. I’ve bunkered down in Carter with lots of tea, coffee and a about 6 candy bars. Should be enough for surviving 6 real time hours 

[Pillock]

4 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 guess it depends on why you're playing the game.

Personally, I'd like to have the badge, but there's no way I'm going to just camp my character indoors for 2 hours on each of the next 3 days, even if I probably could (once I get hold some water-boiling vessel, that is!). I regard that as a waste of my time.

I haven't played a 4DON before, and I want to experience it, so that's going to trump my collecting achievement badges any day. I've never been that bothered about them anyway.

But I do agree that it'd be better if the gameplay itself was the driving factor in forcing you out into danger, rather than the player's own motivation. Basically, it comes down to food (and it always has done in every game mode): if you have it, you can camp; if you don't, you have to go out and find it (leaving aside starvation exploitation). In normal games you can choose settings that make finding food as difficult as you want or need for your own enjoyment - here the settings have got to satisfy everyone.

The ideal for this challenge would be to force player to be outside at (almost) all times and, crucially, to have to travel, in order to experience the scare-factor. Maybe they should have cranked the candybar decay rate (once you've picked it up) up to crazy levels so that you simply can't hoard it and have to be constantly moving in order to find more? That, I think, would work better than simply locking shut all indoor spaces or restricting the badge timer to when the player is outside.

 

[NardoLoopa]

11 minutes ago, Pillock said:

But I do agree that it'd be better if the gameplay itself was the driving factor in forcing you out into danger, rather than the player's own motivation.

The hard balance is that you cannot punish the people who spent 12hrs yesterday gathering stuff (by unnaturally destroying what they gathered: candy).  And you cannot make it impossible for people who spent 2hrs.

I like the combined idea of opening regions one per-day and force the player to leave the current region.  Something like a gradually rising blizzard that the over-prepared can leisurely saunter out of and the under-prepared have to make a quick escape, but can now spend their day in the new region making up for yesterday.  The condemned zone would have some valuable stuff that makes it rewarding to try to stay in the blizzard longer, rewarding the over-prepared.  But still pushing them out of their comfortzone.  Just a thought. 

[Mixxut]

I'm ready for you aurora wolves!

[Pillock]

16 minutes ago, NardoLoopa said:

The hard balance is that you cannot punish the people who spent 12hrs yesterday gathering stuff (by unnaturally destroying what they gathered: candy).  And you cannot make it impossible for people who spent 2hrs.

I like the combined idea of opening regions one per-day and force the player to leave the current region.  Something like a gradually rising blizzard that the over-prepared can leisurely saunter out of and the under-prepared have to make a quick escape, but can now spend their day in the new region making up for yesterday.  The condemned zone would have some valuable stuff that makes it rewarding to try to stay in the blizzard longer, rewarding the over-prepared.  But still pushing them out of their comfortzone.  Just a thought. 

Thinking about it a bit more, I think the best way to have done this would have been to tie the badge achievements not to time survived but instead to number of lanterns collected. You could have, say, 4 or 5 per map in semi-random locations, and have new ones spawn each day, along with the increasing challenges we have here. You'd award different levels of badge according to the proportion of the total lantern spawns you found over the 4 days (on a single life).

That'd certainly force people to keep moving every day, experiencing the increased dangers in full. And it'd still reward players who have different amounts of time available to play.

[Cr41g]

"we don't need no stinkin badges"

for me....I want to play. I don't want to camp just for an electronic badge.. I would feel better dying and not getting a badge If I gave it 10/10 effort and came up short

 

[Pillock]

1 minute ago, Cr41g said:

"we don't need no stinkin badges"

for me....I want to play. I don't want to camp just for an electronic badge.. I would feel better dying and not getting a badge If I gave it 10/10 effort and came up short

 

Absolutely. But if the gameplay isn't driving your need for exploration, because you've already got enough supplies, what is your effort for?

That's why I think lantern collection would be a better 'objective' than time survived.

[Kongo-Otto]

 

23 hours ago, stapeliad said:

I don't know how people are getting tons and tons of loot.... I'm getting practically nothing.

Same here, best thing I found was a rifle, 13 rounds, an urban parka down to 28% and nut bars all down to less than 30%, i literally survived on cat tails, otoh, it isn't important anymore as I died of hypothermia while carcassing a wolf. Hypothermia risk-> hypothermia-> dead in less than 10 seconds.
I just had 20 minutes more to go for day 2. meh

That was a waste of time, that's for sure.

 

[stapeliad]

15 minutes ago, Mixxut said:

I'm ready for you aurora wolves!

This is my favorite screenshot EVER.

If I had been smart.... which i definitely was NOT.... I should have camped in a fishing hut.  Are there any fish today?

[Cr41g]

3 minutes ago, Pillock said:

Absolutely. But if the gameplay isn't driving your need for exploration, because you've already got enough supplies, what is your effort for?

That's why I think lantern collection would be a better 'objective' than time survived.

an objective would have made for better gameplay and forced people out of their comfort zone....agreed....

I definitely don't have enough of anything...I had limited time yesterday so I will be trying to make my way somewhere tonight... probably PV via Cinder Hills as I am pretty sure coal is going to be a thing day 4... also my clothes are rags...so some cloth is in order. Best item I have is some rabbit mitts I got from my flashlight cache

 

[The Frozen Narcoleptic]

1 hour ago, henroe32 said:

I really hope Fluffy isn’t back. I’ve bunkered down in Carter...

I forgot about Fluffy.  Only took her on once.... Errr.. I mean won once .  The jump scare nearly killed me.

[Ruruwawa]

36 minutes ago, Pillock said:

Absolutely. But if the gameplay isn't driving your need for exploration, because you've already got enough supplies, what is your effort for?

That's why I think lantern collection would be a better 'objective' than time survived.

I like the thought behind the lantern collection but the time to collect them is highly dependent on map and game knowledge.  You'd be shutting out newer or more casual players until next year's event.  Yes, the 2 day badge is very easy for us pros.  But maybe the 4 day one will turn out to be a lot harder.  I think that's a fair way to reward both types of players.

[ajb1978]

I think 4DON could definitely be improved by adding experience modes to it.  A trick-or-treat mode with passive wildlife and tons of candy spawns and jack-o-lanterns, an intermediate mode such as what we have right now, and a challenging mode where loot is scarce and regions are unlocked over time, forcing players to be out and about with the wolves.

Probably a bit much for a once-a-year event though.  I am having fun with it as is.

[Cr41g]

XMAS mode....you have to leave a lump of coal in mailboxes