Forgot How Unpleasant Pleasant Valley Is

[Comet777]

I recently started a new Stalker run in Timberwolf Mountain and have spent almost 30 days there. It has been a very comfortable existence living in the picturesque Mountaineer's Hut. I don't believe that I have needed to have the fire on at all to get through the night, and now that I have been to the summit, I am at the point where I have been able to do things like travel all day or fish all day (and night) without a fire and without even feeling the cold at all (90% of the time). However, I popped over to Skeeters Ridge in Pleasant Valley and that all changed!

I spent the night in the basement and awoke to a blizzard. Great I thought, I can have a quick check around all the remaining burnt buildings and frozen bodies without being hassled by wolves. How naive I was. I stepped outside and had hypothermia risk within a couple of minutes, as it was a chilly -70C! My top level clothing was keeping me at a nice and balmy -40C haha. With life being so easy in Timberwolf Mountain I had to check a couple of times to make sure I was actually on Stalker and then was also beginning to wonder whether the recent update had meant temperatures weren't quite as cold. But now it is obvious, nothing has changed. Yes I may have been a bit lucky in TM and its true I only have one or two blizzards, but the brutal nature of Pleasant Valley is still insane. From nothing below -30C in TM to -70C on my first day in Pleasant Valley, its a shock to the system but at the same time a welcome confirmation that this game has not be made easier. 

I see plenty of comments about people avoiding TM long term because it is too cold and it is not possible to live out of the Mountaineers Hut as you can't stay warm without a fire. But seriously, TM is an absolute breeze compared to Unpleasant Valley. I have spent plenty of time in PV in past runs and have lived there, but you do forget just how much worse it is compared to other regions. 

[ManicManiac]

19 minutes ago, Comet777 said:

I see plenty of comments about people avoiding TM long term because it is too cold and it is not possible to live out of the Mountaineers Hut as you can't stay warm without a fire.

For me, Timberwolf Mountain has become my new favorite place to "homestead"  
Plenty of game to hunt (of all variety), good fishing, and a ton of supplies... I've been living there very comfortably for a while now.  Granted, on the harder difficulties when the global temperature degrades to some bone chilling extremes, that would probably change those circumstances a bit  

Edited June 27, 2019 by ManicManiac

[Ahatch]

Have to agree with your view of PV. Always feel trapped in the farmstead every time I play that map . Blizzards are too common and so much distance to travel to hunt / fish etc. Usually spend about 4 days every Interloper run just enough time to loot everything and get the heck out  

[Comet777]

1 hour ago, Ahatch said:

Have to agree with your view of PV. Always feel trapped in the farmstead every time I play that map . Blizzards are too common and so much distance to travel to hunt / fish etc. Usually spend about 4 days every Interloper run just enough time to loot everything and get the heck out  

Yes fair enough, get in and get out. Although for me the view from Signal Hill at sunrise and sunset is almost enough alone to make it worth while staying a little longer... best view in the game for me. Also I guess all the buildings have insane warmth bonuses that negate even -70C blizzards, but on interloper you are definitely on a tighter deadline so can't afford to wait them out. Plus its not only the freezing blizzards, the fog is the real killer, cos you can't see a thing but the wolves seem to see you with 100% visibility. 

[hozz1235]

Second to FM, PV is my least favorite zone, mainly for this reason.

[Comet777]

10 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

Second to FM, PV is my least favorite zone, mainly for this reason.

Surprisingly I actually still enjoy PV and absolutely love FM. For me the true survival areas are what interest me, so I pretty much spend no time in DP, CH, ML or even BR. Initially I found FM unplayable as I would continually die early, but I wanted it to work out and as I got more experienced with this game it became more manageable and I fell in love with FM. PV has actually probably been the base I have used the most, even when I was learning the game, but the 4 days I have spent there in this playthrough has seen temperatures of -50C or worse every day and raging blizzards every single day too. 

[Gooner77]

59 minutes ago, Comet777 said:

Surprisingly I actually still enjoy PV and absolutely love FM. For me the true survival areas are what interest me, so I pretty much spend no time in DP, CH, ML or even BR. Initially I found FM unplayable as I would continually die early, but I wanted it to work out and as I got more experienced with this game it became more manageable and I fell in love with FM. PV has actually probably been the base I have used the most, even when I was learning the game, but the 4 days I have spent there in this playthrough has seen temperatures of -50C or worse every day and raging blizzards every single day too. 

I love hearing about others that enjoy the remote areas of TLD. Let me know if you ever want to brainstorm on how to survive FM as I am currently running interloper only challenges there. 

[Comet777]

2 hours ago, Gooner77 said:

I love hearing about others that enjoy the remote areas of TLD. Let me know if you ever want to brainstorm on how to survive FM as I am currently running interloper only challenges there. 

Yea I was reading your survival store last night, very impressive stuff! At the stage I am probably going to stick around TW for the time being. However, I previously have done a stalker survival where I restricted myself to FM and Milton Basin (just because I love it in the basin), and that went really well. Figured out that I could build a snow shelter half inside the Spence Homestead if positioned perfectly so was receiving the warmth bonus from both, making it very comfortable to live out of the homestead. I know this is really practical on Interloper as you can't find enough cloth for the snow shelter in the first place plus with the lack of matches you need the fire going the whole time anyway, but it is a cool like quirk for stalker mode. But yes I love the more remote areas and have extensive knowledge of FM, probably the region I am now most comfortable on. I now hardly anything about maps like CH and ML as I find them a little too easy with so many buildings and loot, so avoid them. After I am done with this run I will either move to FM or restart their from scratch, although I am also keen to give HRV a go as I have barely spent any time there and know virtually nothing about it... I am saving the surprise

[hozz1235]

It's not necessarily about survivability, but about scenery and overall feeling about the place.  FM has plenty of caves in which to take shelter in but it's just so....boring!

[Comet777]

6 hours ago, hozz1235 said:

It's not necessarily about survivability, but about scenery and overall feeling about the place.  FM has plenty of caves in which to take shelter in but it's just so....boring!

Differences in opinion clearly. For me, FM is aesthetically beautiful, has the best scenery of all the regions. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother trying to survive there given the harsh climate. 

[hozz1235]

18 minutes ago, Comet777 said:

Differences in opinion clearly.

It certainly is sir, but statistically, most players tend to dislike FM:  

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by hozz1235

[Comet777]

4 hours ago, hozz1235 said:

It certainly is sir, but statistically, most players tend to dislike FM:  

 

Oh yea I have read this and similar posts. I know there isn't a lot of love for FM but that isn't specifically because of the way it looks, more because of the harsh weather, persistent fog, high population of wolves and the big one, WEAK ICE (which takes very little time to figure out). You find that a lot of the survivalist type players love FM whereas the newer players tend to avoid it and stick with the regions that are easy to live in, like ML and CH. I was like that initially, I used to try play on FM because the landscape fascinated me, but I was never good enough to survive that long on it. 

You see in some of favourite region posts a lot of FM, because people either absolutely love it, or absolutely hate it, there isn't really a middle ground (like with say MT, BR or DP). But yes there is a higher proportion of people who hate it, because it is in all honesty probably the hardest map in the game to play. Which for me and plenty of others, add to the allure of it

[Ahatch]

I have a lot of respect for Forlorn Muskeg simply because it gets the game nerves going every time I go there. Always a sense of relief when you get across the marsh without falling through the ice or jumped by a wolf with no place to escape. I still like all the resources there though lots of saplings and cattails. 

[Tbone555]

Oh yes. I remember my old homestead in pv. I stayed in the farmhouse for a long time. Maybe 47 days or so. And it was nice. It was a made my own paradise. I absolutely love the farmhouse.

But then I got caught in a blizzard and died. That happens a lot. It's really one region where you need to have a bearskin bedroll on you at all times.

[Ahatch]

The worst thing is getting caught in a blizzard in that orchard by the farmhouse. So easy to lose your bearings as those rows of trees all look the same. 

[brianbloke]

I shot a bear from the porch not long after getting to the farmhouse, and with the 6-cooking slot stove, I had this huge supply of meat and water to use as a base, so I fell in love with the farmhouse. Plus with the connections to Winding River, Coastal Highway and Timberwolf Mountain, Pleasant Valley is really central.

But yep the weather sucks

[hozz1235]

On 6/28/2019 at 8:05 PM, Comet777 said:

Oh yea I have read this and similar posts. I know there isn't a lot of love for FM but that isn't specifically because of the way it looks, more because of the harsh weather, persistent fog, high population of wolves and the big one, WEAK ICE (which takes very little time to figure out). You find that a lot of the survivalist type players love FM whereas the newer players tend to avoid it and stick with the regions that are easy to live in, like ML and CH. I was like that initially, I used to try play on FM because the landscape fascinated me, but I was never good enough to survive that long on it. 

You see in some of favourite region posts a lot of FM, because people either absolutely love it, or absolutely hate it, there isn't really a middle ground (like with say MT, BR or DP). But yes there is a higher proportion of people who hate it, because it is in all honesty probably the hardest map in the game to play. Which for me and plenty of others, add to the allure of it

For me, I wouldn't really say it's "hard", more...annoying...boring.  I know how to navigate the thin ice and know the locations of helpful caves.  I just tend to breeze through it quickly when I do because I hit the few "loot" spots quickly and efficiently.  If weather is an issue, I'd revert to your original post about PV!  If I truly want to "survivalist" challenge, seems that HRV is the place to be.

[PrincessAutumn]

To be honest and weather aside, I do like Pleasant Valley due to the fact that the farmstead can be a treasure trove and some of the best items can be found up on Signal Hill. In one of my saves, I have found an Expedition Parka plus a rifle with some ammunition just hanging around on the floor. Other than that, Pleasant Valley is a massive zone of unpleasantness lol 

[devamadhu]

On 6/30/2019 at 10:36 AM, Ahatch said:

The worst thing is getting caught in a blizzard in that orchard by the farmhouse. So easy to lose your bearings as those rows of trees all look the same. 

Agreed! In my longest running game, I used the magnifying glass to build a line of single twig fires to guide me safely through blizzards. I oriented them so that when I stood in front of the two cooking rocks, I would be walking in the right direction. Maybe that would be useful in PV (or alternately, avoiding PV at all costs 😂)

[JujuBear]

On 6/27/2019 at 7:46 AM, Comet777 said:

But seriously, TM is an absolute breeze compared to Unpleasant Valley. I have spent plenty of time in PV in past runs and have lived there, but you do forget just how much worse it is compared to other regions. 

PV has always one of those "huge regions" in every sense of the phrase. Apart from the farmhouse and the small houses by Coastal Bridge, it's really just a massive snowfield that takes so darn long to trek - especially during windy days. I'll have to agree with you onTM, I just started exploring it last night and it isn't as terrible a region as some make it out to be.