HINTERLAND, wolves ruin the game!


Ucmh

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1 hour ago, The Black Knight said:

Seems like you are not playing interloper since the update, or you're in a bubble because you are your old safely  old run. I dont care about survive 10000 days, i just get bored after day 200 and start a new one, get my 500 days and faihtful cartographer achievement playing on loper, so im not a noob and believe me that now this is unplayable. Wolves dont afraid of fire anymore and even jump to you if you are by the fire. Here is the proof.
After a day wasted by a blizzard i was preparing my trip to FM to make my tools (day 4 new loper run), then that happens. 
I would like a challenger loper, but this simply sucks

Have you had other instances of this happening.  Thanks for posting the video but it's almost in that blurry zone where even previously a wolf would attack you by a fire if somehow their view of the fire was obstructed.  I've been attacked by a wolf multiple times on interloper after they rounded a tree or something.  I'm not sure if maybe the game was detecting the Camp Office porch as obstructing the wolf's fire detect.

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5 hours ago, ThePancakeLady said:

I'd prefer that they do not remove the standard vanilla settings. I quite like them, and don;t use custom settings very often. In fact, I haven't used them more than 10 times, since it was added. My son also prefers standard vanilla experience modes. My husband and daughter prefer custom settings, and use them more often than vanilla settings. My Godson likes both, about equally from what his Mum & Dad tell me, and what I have seen when he is stating with us for a weekend, and playing the game on our XBox One X.

I would have no problems with Hinterland allowing Feat progression in Custom Settings, but I also understand why they don't allow it.

Feat- (standard English definition): "An achievement that requires great courage, skill, or strength."

Being able to set every setting to "Pilgrim Lite" and spam every skill and action needed to earn the Feat, kinda makes the definition and name "Feat" pointless. They aren't supposed to be super-easy to get. 

Just my 2¢. YMMV. 

 

And I would likely quit playing the game if I could not play standard vanilla Stalker or Voyageur, with the click of 1 button, and instead had to go through the custom settings toolbox each time to set every setting to match the standard templates for either. 

You could use custom settings that are the same as the standard vanilla settings.  You'd lose nothing in the quality of your play... just the attitude that someone who plays on custom is somehow doing "less" than you are.  I know HInterland won't remove them, but I find this ego trip that people use on themselves and others to make the vanilla difficulties mentally superior to the custom ones silly... then asking Hinterland to make the vanilla difficulties harder or easier in this way or that way to their personal liking anyways.

The feats are basically "farming" for a perk on any difficulty.  Chopping meat up into little bitty bits to get more cooking skill ups illustrates this, just as starting 1 stick fires once obtaining a magnifying glass or using a torch to light the next one (so they don't even consume matches).  It is no easier to do in 'Pilgrim Lite" than in Pilgrim or Stalker or Interloper.   Feats also accumulate over multiple saves... You know how I got the sprinting one... multiple 1-day survivals in interloper.  I don't tend to sprint in Pilgrim... no reason to and I'm often encumbered anyways.  The Interloper starts didn't mean I was any good at playing with the wolves.  All it meant was that I had less stuff to carry and so I could run like the wind.  If they want feats to be feats, they should make them earned only after completing challenges... and they should continue to make the challenges play at absolutely set difficulties only.

 

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3 hours ago, The Black Knight said:

Seems like you are not playing interloper since the update, or you're in a bubble

seems like your rude :)

Most of the people here said it works why didn't you quote me saying all the things he says doesn't work does? Seems like you just wanted to pick on my friend and apparently he left this site now.

I'm not saying he didn't deserve to have his post deleted for swearing maybe he did but your post should be deleted also as your fully implying that he's stupid by saying hes in a bubble for saying the same thing a bunch of us said.  

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The ones that want to do away with the "standard" modes... that idea doesn't make any sense to me at all. :D 
If folks have the option to use custom settings, and that's what they prefer... then great, why not just do that?

When I see folks talking about wanting to remove the "standard" difficulty modes; all that does is take options away from other players, and I don't support that at all.  On this, I agree with @GothSkunk and @ThePancakeLady.


:coffee::fire::coffee:

On ‎11‎/‎22‎/‎2019 at 9:33 PM, ManicManiac said:

Where I tend to take issue is when folks want to change the experience for everyone just to better suit their personal gameplay preferences.  In my opinion, this is not okay.

 

Edited by ManicManiac
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1 hour ago, ManicManiac said:

The ones that want to do away with the "standard" modes... that idea doesn't make any sense to me at all. :D 
If folks have the option to use custom settings, and that's what they prefer... then great, why not just do that?

When I see folks talking about wanting to remove the "standard" difficulty modes; all that does is take options away from other players, and I don't support that at all.  On this, I agree with @GothSkunk and @ThePancakeLady.


:coffee::fire::coffee:

 

The problem is that people won't... they lock themselves into playing a standard difficulty and then whine to the devs to change things within those standard difficulties to suit them.  Elminating the standard difficulties would eliminate those requests to change the standard difficulties to make easier or harder.  Really, all they do is put the burden on the dev to continualy "re-customize" the game for every user's liking within the standard framework and create arguments like the ones that erupted here on thiis thread.  We'd be better off without the standard difficulties entirely.

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16 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

We'd be better off without the standard difficulties entirely.

And I disagree with you whole heartedly.  Just because people choose to whine and complain doesn't mean that they are going to get their way.  I run into this kind of thing all the time on this forum, where folks feel like they need to champion some movement...

My response to that is pretty much always the same.  "I think the game is fine as is.  If people don't like something, they can choose not to play that way.  I think the most important aspect of the game is player choice, and folks need to remember everyone can play how they want to... and not to try and change the game for everyone else just to suit one person's personal preferences."  You know, those sorts of things... my posts have a lot of those. :D 

What I think makes the suggestion about removing standard difficulty settings moot... is the fact that custom options are available. 

You say "people won't"... but that's their problem.  If those people don't realize they have agency in how they can tune the game to suit them, then that's their deficiency... the rest of us should not have to pay the price for that.


:coffee::fire:
The short version is, I can't agree with you at all on this.  I've said my peace (and even taken the time to expound on it a little bit), but I have no intentions of arguing about it. :) 

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7 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

And I disagree with you whole heartedly.  Just because people choose to whine and complain doesn't mean that they are going to get their way.  I run into this kind of thing all the time on this forum, where folks feel like they need to champion some movement...

My response to that is pretty much always the same.  "I think the game is fine as is.  If people don't like something, they can choose not to play that way.  I think the most important aspect of the game is player choice, and folks need to remember everyone can play how they want to... and not to try and change the game for everyone else just to suit one person's personal preferences."  You know, those sorts of things... my posts have a lot of those. :D 

What I think makes the suggestion about removing standard difficulty settings moot... is the fact that custom options are available. 

You say "people won't"... but that's their problem.  If those people don't realize they have agency in how they can tune the game to suit them, then that's their deficiency... the rest of us should not have to pay the price for that.


:coffee::fire:
The short version is, I can't agree with you at all on this.  I've said my peace (and even taken the time to expound on it a little bit), but I have no intentions of arguing about it. :) 

It's not about whether or not they "get their way."  It's about the multitude of requests itself. 

What does playing on a standard difficulty do that's positive?... nothing.  You can do everything in custom that you can do in any of the standard difficulties.  I can play a custom game with interloper settings that's exactly the same as an interloper game.  Why are people adverse to playing a custom game that would resolve their issues?  IThey say things like "I want to play on the most difficult setting..."; but the irony is that Interloper is NOT the most difficult setting.  Neither is stalker.  So, it's meaningless.  Without the standard difficulty settings, those sorts of arguments would be non-existent and you wouldn't be able to call other people "deficient"... and that's why I'm saying we'd be better of without them.

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I think the OP was pretty frustrated.  Was looking for others that felt similarly because that's what happens when you feel crappy.  And I've felt similarly at some points with the wolves in the game (I remember doing a search for it once I got jumped by a wolf in Interloper).  The game is peaceful, but it's permadeath so at times it can induce some of that response.  It was nice to offer suggestions to help in case the OP was missing something to help get out of the frustration, but it quickly turned into a "who's right" debate with little utility.  And of course it further progressed into more branches as these situations self-breed.  There's really no need to engage.  The game doesn't need for us to stick up for it at every small turn. 

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24 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

What does playing on a standard difficulty do that's positive?... nothing.

This is a very presumptuous thing for you to say...  Perhaps it does nothing positive for you.  That doesn't mean that others don't find them satisfying experiences.  The simple fact is, if some folks like using custom settings... then great, they can play their game how they want (and use whatever settings they like).  I say let folks play how they want to, and let them choose whatever experience they want to have. 

 

24 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

I'm saying we'd be better of without them.

And again, I whole heartedly disagree with you.  I'm not going to argue with you about it.  You and I don't agree on this, and I'm not going to support something that would take options away from other players (in my opinion, that's not right). 

So let's be done now, okay?  I already made it clear I didn't want to argue about it, so I'm asking a second time now.

Edited by ManicManiac
edited to use general terms.
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22 hours ago, stay puft said:

Honestly if your going to threaten to remove me from the forums for using one swear word towards a person that was picking on me I'll just leave willingly.

:( 

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21 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

If they want feats to be feats, they should make them earned only after completing challenges... and they should continue to make the challenges play at absolutely set difficulties only.

That's actually the single most sensical thing I've read regarding this topic. That... would probably solve everything.

17 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Why are people adverse to playing a custom game that would resolve their issues?

Because I lost my old user state, and have almost no feats anymore. I don't use them anyways - but I wanna have those colorful badges back, eventually. It's bad enough my 4DON badges are lost forever. Otherwise I couldn't care less.

But in general I think the standard difficulties are required to provide a baseline. Having a bajillion options to customize your game can be overwhelming even for people that have a fair bit of experience in The Long Dark. But if you don't like them ... you should be able to play custom without penalty, at least if your settings are reasonably hard.

Also regarding the question if fires work against wolves in Interloper: It apparently does in (some?) old interloper saves, it definitively does not in new Interloper saves. I will tackle this in a seperate post, but the video @The Black Knightposted is accurate and reflects the intended behaviour since Errant Pilgrim. And I can understand that players have problem with that.

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4 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

That's actually the single most sensical thing I've read regarding this topic. That... would probably solve everything.

Because I lost my old user state, and have almost no feats anymore. I don't use them anyways - but I wanna have those colorful badges back, eventually. It's bad enough my 4DON badges are lost forever. Otherwise I couldn't care less.

But in general I think the standard difficulties are required to provide a baseline. Having a bajillion options to customize your game can be overwhelming even for people that have a fair bit of experience in The Long Dark. But if you don't like them ... you should be able to play custom without penalty, at least if your settings are reasonably hard.

Also regarding the question if fires work against wolves in Interloper: It apparently does in (some?) old interloper saves, it definitively does not in new Interloper saves. I will tackle this in a seperate post, but the video @The Black Knightposted is accurate and reflects the intended behaviour since Errant Pilgrim. And I can understand that players have problem with that.

In this game however, the standard difficulty settings are not a baseline.  The easiest standard difficulty setting is not the easiest setting and the allegedly hardest difficulty setting is, again, not anywhere near the hardest difficulty setting that can be achieved using custom settings.  If it is a "baseline," then it is a misleading one.  Objectively, they add "nothing" to the game tiself since any of them can be achieved through custom settings.  They could leave the templates in as "suggested templates" if the fear is that people would become overwhelmed and remove the separate named difficulties themselves... and nothing would be lost gameplay-wise.  (I"m not being presumptuous, I"m being purely objective.  This game is just not like other games that use difficulty settings.  The settings it currently has do not scale linearly from easiest to hardest... but that is what people who are not familair with the game are being led to believe.)

We would be better off without them because that would remove the stigma attached to using the custom interface... since everyone would be using that interface regardless of whether they stay with the templates as they show them or adjust individual sliders within them.  I think it would save a lot of arguments and misunstandings here.

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10 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

In this game however, the standard difficulty settings are not a baseline.

They are a baseline for overall balanced experiences.

10 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Objectively, they add "nothing" to the game tiself

... except that people can play the game without having to go through 100 settings they possibly don't even understand. Not everybody has years of TLD under their belt like you and I.

12 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

They could leave the templates in as "suggested templates" if the fear is that people would become overwhelmed and remove the separate named difficulties themselves... and nothing would be lost gameplay-wise.

And how exactly would that be different from now? 🙂 Well, except the feat progression, but that one we agree upon.

13 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

We would be better off without them because that would remove the stigma attached to using them

I'm not sure what stigma you are talking about EXCEPT that there is no feat progression. I've never been attacked on the forums or anywhere else because I play custom games (I used to play a lot of @BareSkin's Sleepwalking, which is very custom)

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2 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

They are a baseline for overall balanced experiences.

... except that people can play the game without having to go through 100 settings they possibly don't even understand. Not everybody has years of TLD under their belt like you and I.

And how exactly would that be different from now? 🙂 Well, except the feat progression, but that one we agree upon.

I'm not sure what stigma you are talking about EXCEPT that there is no feat progression. I've never been attacked on the forums or anywhere else because I play custom games (I used to play a lot of @BareSkin's Sleepwalking, which is very custom)

You're not following me at all.  When you start the game currently, you see five selections:  Pilgrim, Voyageur, Stalker, Interloper, and Custom... laid out exactly like other games set out their difficulty settings and with descriptions that sort of associate them with difficulty levels.  The sigma is in the language used in those descriptions... "for new and experienced players..." vs. "for veteran players..."  and the fact that "Custom" is in a different color than the rest.

I'm suggesting removing that "Choose your Experience Screen" and have the Survival Mode selection go right into the Custom UI with the tabs up at the top for Pilgrim, Voyageur,  Stalker, and Interloper... and a brief description of what the setting does that is  not associated with player experience.  For example:  For the Pilgrim Template - just say that wildlife will not attack unless provoked, weather is somewhat moderate, and resources are somewhat plentiful."   For Voyageur, just say:  wildlife is sparse but can seek you out and attack, weather is colder, but resources are still plentiful."  Similarly, remove the associations with player experience and references to "challenge, etc."   Allow the player making the choice to look at the individual settings under the template.  Yes, it's a little more information they would have to digest at the start, but then they know it's there and that it can be changed.  It puts everything through the same interface, so people won't tend to view changing the sliders "as cheats" like they do now.

The feat progression can either be allowed in all games and I don't see it as a problem because it's farming, not a true feat.  Does it really matter so, so much whether a player walks 1,000 km in a pilgrim or an interloper one?... when in reality the mileage just accumulates over all your standard starts regardless of their difficulty and really is just a measure of how many hours you've played the game.  Right now, I could start 1,000 Pilgrim saves in Mystery Lake, run to the camp office and read a book and start a fire and sleep for one night... and I would get all the old Feats.  It wouldn't be a measure of how long or how well I survived in any of those single-day starts.

As it is, it's just an illusion that people are playing a harder version of the game to get the feats.  Because it's just farming, IS it such a crime to reward people for playing a long time AND enjoying it at a level they CAN enjoy it?  If a person likes lots of blizzards, but no wolves... why can't they still earn a "'feat" for lighting 1,000 fires or sprinting 50 km (both of which would be harder in a blizzard even without wolves breathing down their necks).   Even if they go with "Pilgrim Lite" - taking all the sliders to their easiest setting, does it make starting 1,000 fires any more difficult or any less a time-consuming grind?

If they want to add FEATS, they should associate them with the challenges... and offer the challenges in only templates of settings that Hinterland decides suits the challenge itself (i.e. a single difficulty determined by Hinterland for that challenge).

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Guest jeffpeng

I am following you. I at least try. I'm not agreeing with you on all accounts. There's a difference.

22 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

The sigma is in the language used in those descriptions...

First of all: why must all language today be regarded as being offensive to at least somebody? Where is the stigma in giving something a description somebody feels adequate even if it may not be in someone elses opinion? If you regard yourself an expert, but the "expert difficulty" doesn't fit you .... then that's stigmatising you as being not an expert? Is that the logic behind that??

Then: newer players will need a way to apropriately tell what setting applies to their skill level in a way they are accustomed to - meaning which they know from other, similar games. And since the advent of video games those have been things like "easy" or "beginner" and "hard" or "expert". 

Also: who exactly is regarding

23 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

changing the sliders "as cheats"

? I haven't seen a single instance of anyone saying or even implying that. 

What I can imagine working better than the current system is "removing" Custom, giving the 4 difficulties we have now, and then offer "Customize" as an option before you select your starting region and your feats.

As for feat progression, again, we agree, and I already told you that I favor your idea tying them to challenges instead of grinding them in "vanilla" settings, which you would know if you would have followed me :D

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1 hour ago, jeffpeng said:

I am following you. I at least try. I'm not agreeing with you on all accounts. There's a difference.

First of all: why must all language today be regarded as being offensive to at least somebody? Where is the stigma in giving something a description somebody feels adequate even if it may not be in someone elses opinion? If you regard yourself an expert, but the "expert difficulty" doesn't fit you .... then that's stigmatising you as being not an expert? Is that the logic behind that??

Then: newer players will need a way to apropriately tell what setting applies to their skill level in a way they are accustomed to - meaning which they know from other, similar games. And since the advent of video games those have been things like "easy" or "beginner" and "hard" or "expert". 

Also: who exactly is regarding

? I haven't seen a single instance of anyone saying or even implying that. 

What I can imagine working better than the current system is "removing" Custom, giving the 4 difficulties we have now, and then offer "Customize" as an option before you select your starting region and your feats.

As for feat progression, again, we agree, and I already told you that I favor your idea tying them to challenges instead of grinding them in "vanilla" settings, which you would know if you would have followed me :D

Did I say "offensive?"  No, I did not .  I've said all along that people lock themselves into the notion that they have to play on a standard difficulty and they say things like this OP did ... that they want to play on the hardest difficulties.  There is a notion in games that the player who plays on the higher difficulties is better than the player who doesn't.  That attitude is evident throughout this thread and it's imbedded in the language Hinterland used on the description page.  It can be eliminated without affecting the gameplay.  It does nothing positive.

Whether they want to deal with harsh weather or wolves or lack of resources has nothing to do with easy or hard.  Newer players can determine what sort of experience they want - weather, enemies or starvation without it being associated with being a "veteran" of the game itself.

On feats... you said " you should be able to play custom without penalty, at least if your settings are reasonably hard."  I'm saying there is "no reasonably hard."  It shouldn't matter whether one farms fires on the absolutely easiest setting going or not.  It's ALL just grinding.  The feats are just accumulations of time spent.  Players should enjoy the time they spend in the game and not be compelled to meet a "standard" in order to have their time spent in the game count towards something like 1,000 fires...

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7 hours ago, jeffpeng said:
On 12/14/2019 at 8:46 PM, UpUpAway95 said:

If they want feats to be feats, they should make them earned only after completing challenges... and they should continue to make the challenges play at absolutely set difficulties only.

That's actually the single most sensical thing I've read regarding this topic. That... would probably solve everything.

🤷‍♂️What more can I say?

In general ... maybe I'm too old to see the value in making everything fit for everyone and without attaching labels to it so that everyone can feel like they are good at everything. I simply don't subscribe to that kind of society - which very well might be as outdated as I am becoming myself. I'm great at stuff, some of which I am paid for to do, some of which I am admired for. I suck at stuff, some of which I pay people to do for me, some of which I admire people for that are really good at it. I for one don't feel bad for not being great at everything. In fact almost everyone sucks at almost everything except the few things they are good at.

When I play an FPS shooter I want the beginner or at least the medium setting, because I suck at FPS shooters. My hand-eye coordination is so-so, my reactions are a dumpsterfire, and my eyes are getting slow with age. When I play an RTS I want the medium setting. I'm good at strategizing, but my APMs are terrible. When I play a turn based strategy game like CiV or XCOM I want the hard setting because when I can do one thing it's outthink my opponent and use rules to my advantage. What I don't want from all those games are 100 settings I have to go through first so I can start a game that's probably still not for me. 5, fine, 10 ... meh-ybe.

This reminds me of Surviving Mars. That game puts you through maybe two dozen options before you start your first game. The first game I played ended me thinking "I have no time for this" without even starting a game. I came to really like that game later when I finally though I could at least try to give a game I paid 20 bucks for a chance, but I might as well have never touched it again. And even THAT game calculates a difficulty percentage.

When I started TLD I looked at the settings. Pilgrim... yeah, no. That's too easy probably. Stalker .... hm .... well, probably better learn the game first. So Voyageur. Which kept me on my toes for a good amount of days before I migrated to Stalker which kept me on my toes for over of year. Scroll through 100 settings I don't even understand? Nope.

Having non-agressive wolves, no temperature progression, abundant loot and greatly reduced consumption is objectively easier than having unforgiving wolves, steep temperature progression, scarce loot with half the loot table inaccessible and punishing consumption, with the former being most likely more suitable for beginners, and the latter probably only to be recommended for experts that feel comfortable playing the game at its limits. I personally want that kind of label on a difficulty setting so I can decide if it is likely to be appropriate for me without first having to study what all those settings actually mean.

And I dare say that this thinking is prevalent in the majority of people. And I still don't see the stigma. But then again... maybe I'm too old to see that. But I guess I rest my case.

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I've been wondering about that stigma comment all along too. I'm glad I'm not the only one. I've been wondering what this supposed stigma is about because it's a single player game so no one can attach stigma to anything you are doing but you. As for doing away with the standard settings, I am against that for all the reasons stated above already. There is just no way that any dev team could possibly anticipate and accommodate all the possible preconceived notions one might possibly bring to any game before playing the first time. I for one was ecstatic to find this game was not at all what I had been expecting. I haven't stopped playing since I bought it and I haven't even tried custom yet, not because of any perceived stigma but because that's kind of a reward I am saving for myself when I make at least 500 days on all the settings.

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Tying the Feat progression to Challenge modes only is not sensical, IMHO. 

This "solution" would require players who do not want to play Challenge Modes to, well, play Challenge Modes. Which may seriously decrease their enjoyment of the game. 
I've played all of the Challenges except Archivist and the new one. And to be honest, i don;t care to play those 2. Not my "joy" in this game. I love Survival Mode. I love Story Mode. Challenge Modes I only played to get the Steam and XBox One achievements/trophies.  I would likely not have played them at all,  if it were not for that. Yes, I learned a great deal from each one. I gritted my teeth and played Hopeless Rescue 13 times before I finally beat the timer. Not my thing, did not fit my playstyle, did not make me want to keep playing it (them) again. Sense of Satisfaction? Yes and no. I was frustrated by not being able to play the way I enjoy playing, just to get that achievement (and yes, I like getting achievements in games I play, very much...), satisfaction at having finally gotten it over with and never having to do it again.

Getting upset with having to play standard vanilla modes to earn Feat badges is exactly how I feel about the idea of being told I have to play Challenge Modes to earn them. I don't play vanilla modes because I feel pressured into doing so, or feel any "stigma" attached to using the Custom Settings Toolbox. I've used it. I prefer the vanilla mode settings. Plain and simple.

 

And again, I will reiterate... 

On 12/14/2019 at 10:45 AM, ThePancakeLady said:

I would have no problems with Hinterland allowing Feat progression in Custom Settings, but I also understand why they don't allow it.

 

On 12/14/2019 at 10:45 AM, ThePancakeLady said:

And I would likely quit playing the game if I could not play standard vanilla Stalker or Voyageur, with the click of 1 button, and instead had to go through the custom settings toolbox each time to set every setting to match the standard templates for either. 

I like that I can set my experience mode with one click, at the set-up for each new save. I would not like having to go through the Custom Settings Toolbox each time just to select a vanilla experience mode template, or duplicate one (meaning I better screenshot or write those settings down so I don't forget what they are for any of the current 4 vanilla experience modes), using more clicks to get there, that was available with one click before.  It's a little thing, but, it's my little thing, and I like it how it is right now. The less clicks, the better for me.

 

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10 hours ago, ThePancakeLady said:

This "solution" would require players who do not want to play Challenge Modes to, well, play Challenge Modes. Which may seriously decrease their enjoyment of the game. 

 

10 hours ago, ThePancakeLady said:

Getting upset with having to play standard vanilla modes to earn Feat badges is exactly how I feel about the idea of being told I have to play Challenge Modes to earn them.

Which is a fair point. Agreed. I guess I will have to concede that point. 🙆‍♂️ So back to square one. :) 

10 hours ago, ThePancakeLady said:

I would not like having to go through the Custom Settings Toolbox each time just to select a vanilla experience mode template, or duplicate one (meaning I better screenshot or write those settings down so I don't forget what they are for any of the current 4 vanilla experience modes), using more clicks to get there, that was available with one click before.  It's a little thing, but, it's my little thing, and I like it how it is right now. The less clicks, the better for me.

Which is also fair, and which is why I offered the concession that maybe already established modes would have an addtional screen on which one can chose to customize it. I guess that solution would probably still be fine with you (and me), but would also - at least in my weary eyes - mostly achieve what @UpUpAway95 aims for - which is to liberate Custom Mode from its "stigmatised" state in the corner of the room.

Plus.... one thing I haven't actually touched on : It's hard to change the game in a way where you take something away from people and make anyone really happy with that. When discussing politics I usually phrase it like this:

When you don't give something to the people they will complain. When you give something to the people... they will still complain. But if you take something away from people .... you lose the next election at best, and have a revolution on your hands at worst.

Meaning removing the established game mode, all the statistics attached to them, and also that little bit of silly pride of actually having 3000 days on whatever difficulty suits you best game mode you enjoy the most .... would make nobody truly happy in my opinion... except that tiny fraction that wants exactly that.

Edited by jeffpeng
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15 hours ago, ThePancakeLady said:

Tying the Feat progression to Challenge modes only is not sensical, IMHO. 

This "solution" would require players who do not want to play Challenge Modes to, well, play Challenge Modes. Which may seriously decrease their enjoyment of the game. 
I've played all of the Challenges except Archivist and the new one. And to be honest, i don;t care to play those 2. Not my "joy" in this game. I love Survival Mode. I love Story Mode. Challenge Modes I only played to get the Steam and XBox One achievements/trophies.  I would likely not have played them at all,  if it were not for that. Yes, I learned a great deal from each one. I gritted my teeth and played Hopeless Rescue 13 times before I finally beat the timer. Not my thing, did not fit my playstyle, did not make me want to keep playing it (them) again. Sense of Satisfaction? Yes and no. I was frustrated by not being able to play the way I enjoy playing, just to get that achievement (and yes, I like getting achievements in games I play, very much...), satisfaction at having finally gotten it over with and never having to do it again.

Getting upset with having to play standard vanilla modes to earn Feat badges is exactly how I feel about the idea of being told I have to play Challenge Modes to earn them. I don't play vanilla modes because I feel pressured into doing so, or feel any "stigma" attached to using the Custom Settings Toolbox. I've used it. I prefer the vanilla mode settings. Plain and simple.

 

And again, I will reiterate... 

 

I like that I can set my experience mode with one click, at the set-up for each new save. I would not like having to go through the Custom Settings Toolbox each time just to select a vanilla experience mode template, or duplicate one (meaning I better screenshot or write those settings down so I don't forget what they are for any of the current 4 vanilla experience modes), using more clicks to get there, that was available with one click before.  It's a little thing, but, it's my little thing, and I like it how it is right now. The less clicks, the better for me.

 

... and if I said, make the Challenge badges we currently get useful in the game as some sort of perk... how would you interpret that?  Right now, they are just colorful fluff.  The feats we currently have are perks, but are just farming.  They would be no easier to get on "Pilgrim Lite" than on the standard Pilgrim mode.  So, your argument for not opening them up to Custom games doesn't hold waterr.  You assume that someone playing custom would set the bars all to their easiest settings to "cheat" to get feats... that's stigmatizing the mode.  Furthermore, you have no problem with forcing someone to play on a standard difficulty to earn those, but Heaven forbid you're forced to play a challenge to earn a challenge badge... and Heaven forbid that badge actually becomes worth something in the game itself.

The UI that gets us there adds nothing to the gameplay... it's just an extra step.  I think there is a benefit to removing that step so that new players realize their is nothing in the standard settings that can't be achieved through the custom menus.  Custom is not arbitrarily easier than even the allegedly toughest standard difficulty... which is a misconception anyways because Stalker and Interloper are equal in difficulty... just in different ways... require different strategy to the gameplay.

Regardless, I just give up trying to explain myself here.  I'm continually misunderstood.  You all can deal with all the requests and ensuing arguments over making Interloper easier or stalker easier or when people say "this game is too easy" without realizing they can make it a lot harder themselves.  I like the custom settings.  I've not played a game that gives players that sort of liberty to make the game enjoyable for themselves.  I applaud Hinterland for it.   It's a shame it gets bogged down in the same old arguments over requesting the devs changes something because it might make the standard difficulties easier or too hard.  I'm done.  Bye.

 

Edited by UpUpAway95
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On 12/14/2019 at 1:52 PM, stay puft said:

Honestly if your going to threaten to remove me from the forums for using one swear word towards a person that was picking on me I'll just leave willingly.

If you read the forum rules, you'll find there's a hard ban on cussin'. They don't want people to do that... trying to keep it kid friendly in here, and I can't say that I blame 'em for that. Given the cesspools that so many public fora turn into (YouTube comments, anyone? Didn't think so) I can't really find fault for them having a zero tolerance policy on that.

And yeah, they've muted me before for that when I lost my temper a little bit; again, can't really complain about it.

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