Let's talk difficulty

[coryduran]

Huzzah I was trying to figure out what kind of thread could generate the most arguments, and I came up with it!

Really, I see a lot of conversations about the difficulty of this game. My room mate bought this game after watching me binge on it for weeks and has has had a hard time making it past his first week, the initial learning curve is certainly steep!

That being said, once you put a couple of hours into it, is it really that hard?

So what do you all think? I'd make a poll but I can't figure out how on these forums (really I didn't look THAT hard..)

I'll say my peace though

I'm not that old of a man, 25 is really pretty young by a lot of standards, but maybe my 90's life of gaming has hardened me for the experiences of an unforgiving, no tutorial no handholding video game. I have never had a real complaint about the difficulty of this game. I mean, I've discussed how hard/frustrating/infuriating it can be at times, but they are never actually complains of things I want to be different. Yes, it's devastating to have a game end on day 45 because I decided to harvest the last of a deer as the weather changed, dropping my condition to 60% and freezing while I try to walk back to my base encumbered, only to be spotted by a wolf ten feet from my door, dumping gear as I try to sprint inside only to be mauled and killed, but again, I can't say I really complained about it. I made decisions that led to my death in a game that is unapologetic in it's unforgiving play. Is it sad to see a 50 day game go away in the blink of an eye because of a decision you made? Yeah, but not all that much sadder than seeing my 5 hours of play through on Sonic the Hedgehog go away because my dog pulled a cord out of the wall when I was six (Ah the days without save features...).

The modern gaming era (2005-2015) has become notorious for appealing to the LARGEST crowd of gamers possible, which ultimately has lead to things like hand holding and games that you can't lose. Don't get me wrong, one of my very favorite games of the last decade was The Last of Us. The story telling, the lightning, stage design, characters, it was beautiful, but there isn't much of a challenge in a game that lets you redo every experience, that let's you restart from five seconds ago every time you die.

The Long Dark is hard. The weather will kill you more times than you'll die in a lot of other games period, but as someone who came up in what was maybe the tail end of an era of gaming that really did challenge you sometimes, frustrate you, enrage you, I find TLD's difficulty nostalgic, engaging.

And finally, to end it all. I ask again, is it really that hard? I know I wrote a short novel, but I'd love to see others opinions.

[ChillPlayer]

It's not that hard but more importantly it's pretty fair. I can't think of a single instance where I didn't die because of a mistake I made, every death is a lesson. Which is why I compare TLD alot to Dark Souls, it has the same concept of learning by dying.

Btw if I read you correctly you are looking for a pure gaming experience. Well then, grab Dark Souls and be blown away

[coryduran]

It's not that hard but more importantly it's pretty fair. I can't think of a single instance where I didn't die because of a mistake I made, every death is a lesson. Which is why I compare TLD alot to Dark Souls, it has the same concept of learning by dying.

Btw if I read you correctly you are looking for a pure gaming experience. Well then, grab Dark Souls and be blown away

Yeah I think that's my biggest thing is that it's all learning, deaths are almost always caused by my own mistakes. The first time I died because I came up from harvesting a deer in a blizzard, with no idea where to head, I made it a rule to always make sure I'm pointing straight towards some kind of shelter, so if I come up into a blizzard, I just run straight. The first time I died because I tried to carry too much back to my base in one run, a lesson. The first time I died because I went out scavenging with about 50-60% condition, a lesson.

[mrrrmrrr]

It's not that hard but more importantly it's pretty fair. I can't think of a single instance where I didn't die because of a mistake I made, every death is a lesson. Which is why I compare TLD alot to Dark Souls, it has the same concept of learning by dying.

Btw if I read you correctly you are looking for a pure gaming experience. Well then, grab Dark Souls and be blown away

But in Dark Souls once you get good enough at moving, dodging, parrying, and predicting your opponents' moves, you can easily survive most situations on pure skill alone rather than smart decision making or good gear. In other words skill is based on mastery of the mechanics first of all, and knowledge/strategy second. In TLD, skill is all about good decision making and planning. Being really really good at the wolf-fight mechanic will increase your chances of survival, but no amount of reaction time, hand-eye coordination, and multitasking skills will help you survive bad decisions.

They're definitely both "hard but fair" games, but (in keeping with the thread's title), they depend on qualitatively different types of skill.

[Mafti]

It's not hard after a while.

I hope they will implement some custom-mode where you can toggle certain variables yourself to make it more interesting, without burdening the developers

[Cosmoline]

I agree that the difficulty depends in large part on your own behavior. If you play it safe you can live a long time with some luck. I had a very long run recently doing it that way. But then I decided to try to set up on the islands, and got killed when a blizzard set in for six hours and I was ambushed by wolves trying to drag my exhausted ass back home. I took a risk leaving the sleeping bag at home to save weight and paid for it.

This isn't a "game" in the same sense that Dark Souls is a game. It's not designed to test your platforming prowess or combat dodge-roll-backstab skill. In sandbox there is no leveling, no goal to get to, no bell to ring, no boss to fight. In a way it's a test of wisdom and an existential exercise. If you want it to be about wolf dodging, you can play Stalker mode and set up shop in the Wolf & Son's gas station the middle of Wolfton with Wofly McWolf and his brother Wolfen as neighbors. If you want to make it last longer, you can set up on ML at the office or the homestead or one of the more remote and wolf-lite cabins. You can be Liam Neeson and duke it out with the furry ones until you run out of antibiotics and bandages. Or you can be a pacifist and try to survive without firing a shot or killing anything. The achievements suggest that the devs see this as a truly open experience, with the players deciding how to approach the problems within the parameters of the game. Presumably the game itself with the NPC's will continue this approach. Allowing you to kill everyone and take their stuff or cooperate and have the advantages of companions but the downside of more mouths to feed.

[ChillPlayer]

I had a very long run recently doing it that way. But then I decided to try to set up on the islands, and got killed when a blizzard set in for six hours and I was ambushed by wolves trying to drag my exhausted ass back home. I took a risk leaving the sleeping bag at home to save weight and paid for it.

that's the stuff good stories are made of and that's why I love this game so much, rater sooner than later you will experience a similar situation in every run, this game can become so intense and only because some of your stats are red and the sun's not shining

I think my reference to Dark Souls was misinterpreted. By no means would I say TLD and DS are the same game. I was solely refering to the mechanic of learning by dying. Sure there comes a time where you truly own every boss, just watch my DS videos, especially the DS1 all boss kill where some bosses fell in 15 seconds where other players need at least 5 mins. But that's not the point, I died so fucking many times in DS, a thousand deaths would sure be an understatement. But believe me, with every single death I learned something. Maybe just the timing of the finish of one particular boss move, but I died and had an experience I can draw from more. And in TLD it's exactly the same, that's what I was talking about. I didn't die a death yet where I didn't learn something from it. But "ownage" in this regard comes a lot faster in TLD than in DS, there are just many fewer "things" to know at the moment, there are bosses in DS where I had to be careful about more things than in the whole TLD (bit overestimated ).

Nevertheless, the principle of learning by dying is as huge a part in TLD as it is in DS - that's all where I think the games are the same.

[coryduran]

This isn't a "game" in the same sense that Dark Souls is a game. It's not designed to test your platforming prowess or combat dodge-roll-backstab skill. In sandbox there is no leveling, no goal to get to, no bell to ring, no boss to fight. In a way it's a test of wisdom and an existential exercise. ......

...... Allowing you to kill everyone and take their stuff or cooperate and have the advantages of companions but the downside of more mouths to feed.

These are the kinds of things I like about it the most. Like you said, it's a test about decision making, about learning from mistakes, and yeah it asks you to play it and survive however you can, whichever way you as the individual player deems best. I hope that the story version offers a structured and compelling story obviously, but I hope that it retains the same freedom and ability to decide for myself that we have in the sandbox. Like you said, I want the choice to kill other survivors, not that I will, but I want that to be my decision, not the games.

[The last one]

I like that it says in the description of the stalker difficulty: "for players who are looking for a punishing experience." It almost makes you wonder what kind of a masochist would play this?

The Dark Souls comparison is good at least in the sense that this game will not hold your hand. When I realised there would be no save game and that my mistake would end it for me then and there, it just made me want to succeed that much more. Sandbox mode would be meaningless if I could just load 10 seconds before that wolf spotted me and move in a different direction.

That being said, the game is not difficult. After a few sorry attempts and having learned how things go, I easily made it to 20 days... then got mauled by a wolf hiding under the abandoned lookout because apparently there's a blind spot and I had no bandages left. Whose fault was it? Mine, of course. I hadn't planned on running into more than two wolves on that run and, as such, did not make more bandages for myself.

The only way the game could have made the point of my own foolishness clearer is if after I died it played "Bye bye baby" by the Bay City Rollers.

So I wouldn't say it's hard, but punishing like the game itself says. But the irony is that because it's so punishing it is also very rewarding. It's just harder to measure reward in negatives: didn't starve, didn't get caught in a blizard, didn't die of dysentery, etc.

[ChillPlayer]

I hadn't planned on running into more than two wolves on that run and, as such, did not make more bandages for myself.

I've got the same lesson when I reached around 80 days the first time in stalker. For some reason I though it'd be a good idea to go wolf hunting without bandages and of course, died lol.

[FoneBoneJay]

Huzzah I was trying to figure out what kind of thread could generate the most arguments, and I came up with it!

Really, I see a lot of conversations about the difficulty of this game. My room mate bought this game after watching me binge on it for weeks and has has had a hard time making it past his first week, the initial learning curve is certainly steep!

That being said, once you put a couple of hours into it, is it really that hard?

So what do you all think? I'd make a poll but I can't figure out how on these forums (really I didn't look THAT hard..)

I'll say my peace though

I'm not that old of a man, 25 is really pretty young by a lot of standards, but maybe my 90's life of gaming has hardened me for the experiences of an unforgiving, no tutorial no handholding video game. I have never had a real complaint about the difficulty of this game. I mean, I've discussed how hard/frustrating/infuriating it can be at times, but they are never actually complains of things I want to be different. Yes, it's devastating to have a game end on day 45 because I decided to harvest the last of a deer as the weather changed, dropping my condition to 60% and freezing while I try to walk back to my base encumbered, only to be spotted by a wolf ten feet from my door, dumping gear as I try to sprint inside only to be mauled and killed, but again, I can't say I really complained about it. I made decisions that led to my death in a game that is unapologetic in it's unforgiving play. Is it sad to see a 50 day game go away in the blink of an eye because of a decision you made? Yeah, but not all that much sadder than seeing my 5 hours of play through on Sonic the Hedgehog go away because my dog pulled a cord out of the wall when I was six (Ah the days without save features...).

The modern gaming era (2005-2015) has become notorious for appealing to the LARGEST crowd of gamers possible, which ultimately has lead to things like hand holding and games that you can't lose. Don't get me wrong, one of my very favorite games of the last decade was The Last of Us. The story telling, the lightning, stage design, characters, it was beautiful, but there isn't much of a challenge in a game that lets you redo every experience, that let's you restart from five seconds ago every time you die.

The Long Dark is hard. The weather will kill you more times than you'll die in a lot of other games period, but as someone who came up in what was maybe the tail end of an era of gaming that really did challenge you sometimes, frustrate you, enrage you, I find TLD's difficulty nostalgic, engaging.

And finally, to end it all. I ask again, is it really that hard? I know I wrote a short novel, but I'd love to see others opinions.

It is not hard enough but there continue to be some flaws in the game. Rough edges and quirks that have to be ironed out. What other games do you speak of where weather kills you?

[coryduran]

I wasn't referencing other games, I just meant that the weather alone in TLD causes more death for players than you'll die period in other games. My point was that as an industry, it seems like the trend is to make games that are easier/gradual learning curves/ have less deaths overall for the player. That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially when it comes to increasing the amount of people who want to play your game, but for older gamers who are more used to an intensive, challenging, F#$% your hand holding experience, TLD is a very welcome change to the current games coming out.

[Bill Tarling]

as an industry, it seems like the trend is to make games that are easier/gradual learning curves/ have less deaths overall for the player

Don't forget - less deaths and more hand holding also means players can complete a lot of the games quicker so they'll buy the next new game being released right behind it

[coryduran]

as an industry, it seems like the trend is to make games that are easier/gradual learning curves/ have less deaths overall for the player

Don't forget - less deaths and more hand holding also means players can complete a lot of the games quicker so they'll buy the next new game being released right behind it

Right, it's frustrating that I bought Watch Dogs for example, after like a six month delay, for $60 and put about 20-30 hours into it, very rarely dying outside of the multiplayer experience. Of course I bought TLD on sale for $10, and have over 100 hours into the alpha version of the sandbox alone...

[elloco999]

I can't remember when I last payed the full price for a game. I always wait until the price has dropped and even then I usually wait until it's on sale. But then I do have about 200 games on Steam that I've never even played, so I't not like I'm waiting for a new game

[frunsi]

The modern gaming era (2005-2015) has become notorious for appealing to the LARGEST crowd of gamers possible, which ultimately has lead to things like hand holding and games that you can't lose. Don't get me wrong, one of my very favorite games of the last decade was The Last of Us. The story telling, the lightning, stage design, characters, it was beautiful, but there isn't much of a challenge in a game that lets you redo every experience, that let's you restart from five seconds ago every time you die.

i know this is kinda off topic, but have you played the last of us on survivor/grounded? i mean, i thought it was pretty hard on normal on my first playthrough, but on my second one on hard i found it to be not that difficult after all, with the only thing limiting you being less resources, so you just use bricks, bottles and fists a lot more but it's still easy. grounded difficulty especially is a whole other level, no listen mode, no HUD that tells you how many bullets/how much health you have left, and the resources AND save points are extremely scarce. death is not as heavy as in the long dark, but still a punch in the gut and also far more difficult to escape.

[TLDFAN]

They should add a wet meter which then directly affects your cold meter and in turn affects your hungry meter. Being wet outside or even indoors at 30F is lethal in hours. Right now you can fall into the water, become completely soaked, and thus cold/freezing, then you can still huff it someplace and warm up in under 60 min only to go out about your day no issues. The resulting hypothermia should keep your indoors by a fire for hours. Wet clothes should take at least 4 hours to dry.

They should also adjust the sleep mechanic, when you are in the green your sleep ability should be reduced. You should not be able to sleep 10-12 hours after having just slept 10-12 hours. I think sleeping 1 or 2 hours should get you 1 or 2% health improvement. More per hour with more sleep. A max of say 25% in 12 hours. Right now you can sleep away the health impact from almost a weeks starvation in literally 12 hours.

I also think Health condition should improve when you are in the green zone on all meters. So if you are not fatigued, not hungry, not thirsty, not wet, and not cold and "not sick" you should slowly gain health condition. Say 1% per hour. After about 6 hours you'd stop gaining health because you would be slowly fatiguing, remedied by a short cat nap. In this way abuse of the system could be reduced, challenge could be improved and the overall length of living could be reduced depending on your ability to produce calories sufficient to keep you in the green zones.

This a deep, non-cheap way of adding depth and challenge while also fixing an issue we have with exploitation of long-living system. Nobody can eat one meal a week and not become emaciated yet your character in TLD can do that for months without any issue at all. Min-Maxers use this technique to extend their survival while requiring a pittance in calorie production.

[ChillPlayer]

They should also adjust the sleep mechanic, when you are in the green your sleep ability should be reduced. You should not be able to sleep 10-12 hours after having just slept 10-12 hours.

I agree completely that the eat/sleep cycle needs to be broken, but I'm against making it only impossible by a mechanic as you proposed without giving us something to actually do inbetween. With 3 deer/wolf combos I have ~40kg of meat in my fridge, all my clothes are in good condition and I usually have around 30-40l of water around. So I eat, drink, sleep, rinse repeat until the meat's gone. It adds nothing to the gameplay if I just need to be awake for 6 hours before I can sleep again if there's nothing todo within those 6 hours.

So yes, this needs to be addressed but with more content and not more restrictions

[coryduran]

They should also adjust the sleep mechanic, when you are in the green your sleep ability should be reduced. You should not be able to sleep 10-12 hours after having just slept 10-12 hours.

I agree completely that the eat/sleep cycle needs to be broken, but I'm against making it only impossible by a mechanic as you proposed without giving us something to actually do inbetween. With 3 deer/wolf combos I have ~40kg of meat in my fridge, all my clothes are in good condition and I usually have around 30-40l of water around. So I eat, drink, sleep, rinse repeat until the meat's gone. It adds nothing to the gameplay if I just need to be awake for 6 hours before I can sleep again if there's nothing todo within those 6 hours.

So yes, this needs to be addressed but with more content and not more restrictions

I would have to agree here. The only time I have ever taken advantage of the sleep/eat cycle has been when I've had little to no storage space left and nothing else to do as far as maintaining/repairing.

I also still agree with TLDFAN's original post in the sense that there could be a deepening to the whole wet system, and that the eat/sleep thing needs to be reworked somehow? As a whitewater guide I have a pretty good understanding of cold/cold gear/wet and body effects, and yeah I would have to agree that the current system is a little underwhelming regarding all of that.

For example, wet wool still provides some warmth, where as you're better off naked than having any wet cotton on. Although I guess expectations must also be tempered. I can't really expect the developer to start adding in intricacies of evaporative cooling or what not.

[elloco999]

I completely agree with ChillPlayer on the sleep mechanism. Yes it needs work, but we also need either a lot more things to do while awake, or a way to pass time without doing something.

I think a wet mechanic would be awesome, but also rather complex. Even being inside (without a fire) in wet clothes is deadly, but what when you change your clothes with dry clothes? So the game needs to keep track of all clothes how wet they are. Leaving them outside would result in frozen clothes, leaving them inside (no fire) would dry them very slowly, inside and on your body (no fire) should dry them a little faster, but cost you more calories, inside with a fire would dry them much faster etc. And when you're in a house where there are no dry clothes, you should be able to take all clothes off and use a bed to stay warm. So beds should provide warmth (they don't right now). And then there's the question how fast different clothes should dry. A pair of cotton long johns would probably dry a lot faster than a heavy wool sweater of both are soaked.

[coryduran]

So beds should provide warmth (they don't right now).

I agreed with most of your post, but I have to give big ups to this part right hurrrr. One of my very first annoyances of the game.

[littlefox1970]

That's a really good question you put out...

Hmmm ... I think one of the main things that keeps me coming back for more, day after day, is the fact that I find the game challenging but not impossible. I'm making progress, through effort. There is a very pleasant payoff for diligent determination in this game. I also learn something new every time I play - which I find tremendously appealing! My great hope is that the developers continue to add new things to learn and master as I grow in my skills that I might not ever find the game without challenge.

Little Fox~

[coryduran]

That's a really good question you put out...

Hmmm ... I think one of the main things that keeps me coming back for more, day after day, is the fact that I find the game challenging but not impossible. I'm making progress, through effort. There is a very pleasant payoff for diligent determination in this game. I also learn something new every time I play - which I find tremendously appealing! My great hope is that the developers continue to add new things to learn and master as I grow in my skills that I might not ever find the game without challenge.

Little Fox~

I'm with you on that. I've had a great time coming back to this world and learning and overcoming different elements or aspects of the game. The updates seem like they've been consistent and strong so far, so I'm hoping they keep up with that same trend, and I certainly look forward to a finished product. I have a lot of faith in the Devs as of right now to deliver something really impressive. That being said my biggest fear with anything like this, EA and what not, is that it either A) doesn't get finished, or B) eventually they get tired of it and put out a half assed final product. That being said I really am optimistic that this will get finished and done well.

[TLDFAN]

TLDFAN knocked it out of the park with this one against cheap a** starvation heroes who just want to bragg that theyre on top of the leaderboards. nice one TLDFAN, however i can tolerate this cheap a** starvation technique until the Story mode, better fix that devs, i sold my Barbie playset just to pay for this game :lol:

It isn't cheating, but it is an exploit, there would be severe negative consequences in terms of fatigue when experiencing starvation. The show Naked & Afraid while mostly cheese does show that while all other conditions aside from food are satisfied, water, shelter, heat but yet without food you have a reduction in motivation and beyond the motivation issue you fatigue much quicker. Even people who do well in acquiring food, expend more calories than they recover if not properly versed in the economy of survival based on what the environment is giving them.

[TLDFAN]

They should also adjust the sleep mechanic, when you are in the green your sleep ability should be reduced. You should not be able to sleep 10-12 hours after having just slept 10-12 hours.

I agree completely that the eat/sleep cycle needs to be broken, but I'm against making it only impossible by a mechanic as you proposed without giving us something to actually do inbetween. With 3 deer/wolf combos I have ~40kg of meat in my fridge, all my clothes are in good condition and I usually have around 30-40l of water around. So I eat, drink, sleep, rinse repeat until the meat's gone. It adds nothing to the gameplay if I just need to be awake for 6 hours before I can sleep again if there's nothing todo within those 6 hours.

So yes, this needs to be addressed but with more content and not more restrictions

It should not be as easy as it is to get meat. The AI are stupidly exploitable. Wolves should be A LOT more dangerous. Coyotees and Foxes are the predators humans should mix with, a wolf pack attack in real life would be lethal. One wolf attacking a human would be bad news, but you'd never see it coming. Here the way AI is you can practice dance with wolves all day long.

I agree we need more to do. I.e. more to explore, but true exploration, not in and out of cupboards, we should see things randomly found in the woods. We should be rewarded for taking the risk of being outside, but also blunting the risk by making the weather change slower and in more logical fashion. We should also have more tools to start a fire, and more skills to improve on. Right now, fixing, sewing, fire-starting, all the skills. Well it wouldn't kill to add another 4-12 skills.

These god-items like the gun and magnifying glass should be supplemented by fire-making materials and the skill on how to do it. Make it readable in a book if necessary I don't care but get "real fire-making after matches" in the game!