Mid-Late game survival suggestions.

[GarySutherland]

So as I play this i have noticed that later into the game there is little incentive to keep exploring or moving from your favorite camping spot and it kind of drags on once you have all your necessary survival gear. I thought up a few things which could change the game a bit and maybe make the mid-late game survival mode a bit more engaging.

Food:

I have noticed during the game even on interloper i do not need alot of calories to survive. I can basically do what i call food scumming and only eat 600 cals per day to bring my condition back up when paired with birch bark tea right before i go to sleep. However reality is far different from this, a grown man/woman trekking through the wilderness would burn well in excess of 600 calories and if they maintained this level of consumption for weeks on end they would waste away and die depending on their fat stores. 

So why not add Body weight into the game as a mechanic to influence game play and keep the player moving from location to location in order to find food or making those high calorie cohos even more valuable and sought after for late game survival? 

Tools:

i have found the Quality tools or Simple tools to be nearly pointless outside of repairing items that don't really breakdown very fast. Perhaps they could be used to further improve other tools in the game, such as crafting better handles for knives or hatchets, allowing for reduced harvesting times and to be more effective in combat. or even upgrading your current clothing, layering them with studs from scrap metal to provide a protection bonus, improving the moosehide satchel with D rings rivets for increase carrying capacity and/or durability.

A more engaging Predator:

I was also tossing the idea around of a new Predator before the addition of the Timberwolf, I figured adding a Cougar into the mix would add an element of surprise to the player. Imagine, suddenly you encounter a pack of wolves (or timberwolves) one day and instead of snarling and growing once they get close they would run away yelping for seemingly no apparent reason, the birds would go silent...and that serene music which is playing would suddenly turn to an uneasy ambiance. You hear snow crunching but turn around and see nothing...or maybe something behind that tree or cliff side, a pair of eyes? a thick bushy tail? it isn't moving, but that's just because you are looking at it. and the beast isn't within attack range just yet. It would be a deadly game of hide and seek. the cat would either wait until you are weak enough to take you down, or close enough without you noticing. Instead of insta-kill wolves (come on, i know you have met them!) which seem to be able to bite through bear hide and kill you no matter what, this would add a new element of excitement and terror when you have all those nice Tanky hides which may provide you with safety and warmth, but also fatigue and slow you down. as you try to out play the beast, it's low purring/growl following you through the woods until you find safety kill it or it kills you.

Perhaps the item crafted from it's hide if you do manage to kill it, could be a new type of thermal underwear or even an inner/outer layer shirt? Getting ahead of myself but hey, just a few thoughts.  

[Guest jeffpeng]

1 hour ago, GarySutherland said:

I have noticed during the game even on interloper i do not need alot of calories to survive. I can basically do what i call food scumming and only eat 600 cals per day

This is well known and for several not that easy to explain reasons this hasn't been fixed and, if I might call upon my crystal ball, isn't going to be. If you are looking for a more engaging game mode try 

as it removes the sleep recovery and subsequently forces you to keep yourself saturated. Even though Birch Bark Tea has made this quite a bit easier, it's still a totally different experience compared to starve-a-loper. My favorite flavour is to keep basically everything Interloper, and just tune down the recovy to None and Low.

1 hour ago, GarySutherland said:

i have found the Quality tools or Simple tools to be nearly pointless outside of repairing items that don't really breakdown very fast. Perhaps they could be used to further improve other tools in the game, such as crafting better handles for knives or hatchets, allowing for reduced harvesting times and to be more effective in combat. or even upgrading your current clothing, layering them with studs from scrap metal to provide a protection bonus, improving the moosehide satchel with D rings rivets for increase carrying capacity and/or durability.

Simple and Quality tools significantly speed up the crafting of arrows. This is nowhere mentioned, but if you have them in inventory when crafting arrows (not arrow shafts) you can use them to reduce crafting time by 25% and 50% respectively. Other than that I am not sure giving the player access to even better tools/weapons would really help make the game more engaging. In fact you'd eventually hit a threshhold where encounters with wolves wouldn't matter anymore as they do on, let's say, Voyageur.

1 hour ago, GarySutherland said:

I was also tossing the idea around of a new Predator before the addition of the Timberwolf, I figured adding a Cougar into the mix would add an element of surprise to the player. Imagine, suddenly you encounter a pack of wolves (or timberwolves) one day and instead of snarling and growing once they get close they would run away yelping for seemingly no apparent reason, the birds would go silent...and that serene music which is playing would suddenly turn to an uneasy ambiance. You hear snow crunching but turn around and see nothing...or maybe something behind that tree or cliff side, a pair of eyes?

I actually like this idea of being stalked by a cougar. (Maybe it's a good thing my wife doesn't read those forums ... or does she?) Considering how dumb wolves are right now I'm not sure the AI would be up to it, or more precisely a lot of work would have to get into this to make it really work, but all in all this sounds like an interesting gameplay element with a lot of potential to explore. However I really do wonder how you came up with the idea that cougars would make good underwear

[GarySutherland]

3 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

I actually like this idea of being stalked by a cougar. (Maybe it's a good thing my wife doesn't read those forums ... or does she?) Considering how dumb wolves are right now I'm not sure the AI would be up to it, or more precisely a lot of work would have to get into this to make it really work, but all in all this sounds like an interesting gameplay element with a lot of potential to explore. However I really do wonder how you came up with the idea that cougars would make good underwear

 

Well-sir, I was watching Stranger things three while writing this and saw the classic leopard print spandex the ladies wore back then while doing aerobics and in true Ed Wood fashion said; "That's great, cut! let's roll with it!" 

 Honestly i just thought of slots which we don't have craftable gear for in the game. Shirts would make more sense to me cause i dont think we really have many interesting options for that slot and coats have a ton.

 

4 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

 

Simple and Quality tools significantly speed up the crafting of arrows. This is nowhere mentioned, but if you have them in inventory when crafting arrows (not arrow shafts) you can use them to reduce crafting time by 25% and 50% respectively. Other than that I am not sure giving the player access to even better tools/weapons would really help make the game more engaging. In fact you'd eventually hit a threshhold where encounters with wolves wouldn't matter anymore as they do on, let's say, Voyageur.

Oh now that is something, If i am going to get cabin fever pumping out arrows in trappers i want the best ROI.

Those two modes of play sound interesting a good substitute, I always wanted to try a game with the loot discovery of voyageur but the environmental difficulty of Interloper or worse just never got around to it. In light of what this system of weight loss + gain would require it would require a lot more calories to be discovered.

[Guest jeffpeng]

Just now, GarySutherland said:

Well-sir, I was watching Stranger things three while writing this and saw the classic leopard print spandex the ladies wore back then while doing aerobics and in true Ed Wood fashion said; "That's great, cut! let's roll with it!" 

Dayum xD I thought of Stranger Things too
 

4 minutes ago, GarySutherland said:

I always wanted to try a game with the loot discovery of voyageur but the environmental difficulty of Interloper or worse just never got around to it. In light of what this system of weight loss + gain would require it would require a lot more calories to be discovered.

Well, been there, done that. It's interesting. The fact that wolves are still a rather mortal threat counts for a lot, plus the harsh weather. But opposed to Interloper you have much more active game time since you have all these tools. AND you don't have the wolf swarming from Stalker.

[stratvox]

On 7/14/2019 at 12:39 PM, jeffpeng said:

On 7/14/2019 at 10:33 AM, GarySutherland said:

i have found the Quality tools or Simple tools to be nearly pointless outside of repairing items that don't really breakdown very fast. Perhaps they could be used to further improve other tools in the game, such as crafting better handles for knives or hatchets, allowing for reduced harvesting times and to be more effective in combat. or even upgrading your current clothing, layering them with studs from scrap metal to provide a protection bonus, improving the moosehide satchel with D rings rivets for increase carrying capacity and/or durability.

Simple and Quality tools significantly speed up the crafting of arrows. This is nowhere mentioned, but if you have them in inventory when crafting arrows (not arrow shafts) you can use them to reduce crafting time by 25% and 50% respectively.

I think a nice buff for those tools would be to have those tools save time at the crafting table, AND allow crafting arrows without the table, but with no time bonus from simple tools and only a 10% time bonus for quality tools. N.B.- allow crafting of arrows, not arrow shafts.