Finding settings for the optimal difficulty curve

[Tactical Ex]

I've been working my way towards what I consider an optimal custom survival experience, learning from the custom game I created to get the last 2 achievements. I think there is an "end-game" but it is hard to get to.

I would describe the end-game I want to experience as a set of conditions that lead to the supplies getting rarer and rarer, the weather more harsh and tools and clothing are degrading without hopes of repair. There are all custom settings for these things and finding the balance for them is the key. 

On all of the default options (pilgrim, Voyager, Stalker, etc) I usually plateau into an easy repetitive cycle where I have so many resources that things can get a bit mundane. This is OK, I'm sure many of the players like the first 20-100 day struggle and there is nothing wrong with that but I'm trying to find the right settings for a particular experience that I can only really show with a chart. So please, offer your thoughts on how to set up a custom game to possibly have a similar difficulty curve to the one shown in blue. 

 

Please keep in mind, I have very little experience on interloper and these are all estimations from my perspective and skill level. 

As you may guess by looking at the chart, I kind of want to force the difficulty back up from the plateau I've been encountering. I'm sure hundreds or thousands of days in on the presets supplies would start to dwindle but I don't want to spend more than about 25-50 days in the easier sweet spot AND I want the difficulty to climb above its entry level on day 1.

 

Any thoughts on how you might set a custom game up like this?

[Jimmy]

If you've not yet gained much experience with Interloper, I recommend giving it a try!

The massive drop in both available equipment when looting, plus the unforgiving nature of the weather, makes Interloper a completely different game compared to the other modes. Gaining basic equipment such as matches, clothes, or tools requires specific strategies to accomplish before you're dead from exposure or starvation. It's a truly challenging game mode, designed to push your planning abilities and knowledge of the maps.

Once you've mastered Interloper, the community-created 'Deadman' mode is a great option for the next 'hardest' mode. But even this can be mastered through creative and unorthodox means.

However, it's the nature of the game that the difficulty curve declines as you gain the tools required to survive. Having a bow, or a knife, can make a huge long-term impact to your game. No matter what mode you play, if you've survived fifty days, you're likely able to survive five hundred. The first ten days of any game are the real challenge, when you're scrambling to gather the clothes, tools and other resources you'll need to make it to the next day.

As most experienced Interlopers will tell you, the biggest cause of death for a Survivor past the first ten days is boredom. There's a rush that comes from the knife-edge of survival during the start of a game that simply isn't present later. If that's what you enjoy, then just go ahead and start a new game! The beauty of The Long Dark is that there's no wrong way to play.

[Ahatch]

I will say the initial interloper start is not always as bad as say day 30 because you have that initial food supply however scarce. Once you start to clean up all the deer carcusses along the way and all the cat tails and the very odd can of soda or box of crackers. The weather starts to get bad and if you are unable to equip yourself to hunt things start to get a bit dodgy. The difficulty starts to drop once you get the hunting gear and upgrade all your clothing to the crafted stuff. Then it becomes a matter of keeping up with essential resources metal , cloth and matches that dictate your movements around Great Bear. If you can stay put in one small region things can start to feel safe and the opportunity to get complacent or take poorly planned loot runs that usually end your run. 

[Jimmy]

My experience is that Interloper becomes decidedly simpler with a survival bow and Cooking 5. Soon you have caches of meat and water ready to see you across the maps.

These caches quickly replace the initial non-renewable resources such as toilet water and cat tail stalks. In my current Interloper, I'm more than 30 days in, and haven't eaten a single food besides meat, tea and cat tails. The looted foods and canned goods are just decoration and clutter for my base. The moment you kill a bear, food becomes a non-issue for that region.

Again, it all comes down to having the proper tools for the task. First is a box of matches. Then a hacksaw. Then saplings and improved clothing. Then forged tools. Finally crafted hide clothing and a bow. From that point, it's up to the player to decide their fate, since survival in any given scenario should be achievable with their available resources.

[Hotzn]

15 hours ago, Tactical Ex said:

I've been working my way towards what I consider an optimal custom survival experience, learning from the custom game I created to get the last 2 achievements. I think there is an "end-game" but it is hard to get to.

I would describe the end-game I want to experience as a set of conditions that lead to the supplies getting rarer and rarer, the weather more harsh and tools and clothing are degrading without hopes of repair. There are all custom settings for these things and finding the balance for them is the key. 

On all of the default options (pilgrim, Voyager, Stalker, etc) I usually plateau into an easy repetitive cycle where I have so many resources that things can get a bit mundane. This is OK, I'm sure many of the players like the first 20-100 day struggle and there is nothing wrong with that but I'm trying to find the right settings for a particular experience that I can only really show with a chart. So please, offer your thoughts on how to set up a custom game to possibly have a similar difficulty curve to the one shown in blue. 

 

Please keep in mind, I have very little experience on interloper and these are all estimations from my perspective and skill level. 

As you may guess by looking at the chart, I kind of want to force the difficulty back up from the plateau I've been encountering. I'm sure hundreds or thousands of days in on the presets supplies would start to dwindle but I don't want to spend more than about 25-50 days in the easier sweet spot AND I want the difficulty to climb above its entry level on day 1.

 

Any thoughts on how you might set a custom game up like this?

Interesting thoughts here, +1. I do get the general direction, but don't quite understand what the "Difficulty" represents exactly. In other words, what happens when "Difficulty" reaches 100? I presume it becomes objectively impossible to survive, no matter how astute you are? But do you die immediately, or is it just that your resources cannot grow anymore? I would presume the latter.

Having been with the game and on these forums for quite a long time, I may relate that in earlier versions of the game, you would actually reach the 'end-game' state quite early. When only one region existed - ML - you could collect and count the number of resources easily (provided you did not get killed by wolves, which could happen just as easily). You would only have so many clothes (very few actually), you could break them down into only so many pieces of cloth, and each piece of cloth could be broken down into 2 bandages. One handfight with a wolf - if you survived it at all, you needed to be a really fast clicker - gave you one bleeding wound exactly, which required one bandage. One bullet could net you one deer. One deer gave you around 8 kg of venison, one wolf maybe 4 kg of wolf meat. You could count the calories and how long they would sustain you. No cat tails, no Birch bark, no bear, no moose, no bow, no revolver. Just you, few clothes (no clothing slots etc.), maybe a rifle, a handful of rifle rounds at most, maybe a knife, bandages, wolves and deer. The endgame had a very special feeling to it, as there was no way to survive it at all. It was just a matter of time and what you could do to prolong it. You would get more and more desperate, rip up your clothes, count your resources again and again. Every piece of scrap metal or cloth became the object of heavy decisions: Repair the hatchet to be able to collect wood faster, or the knife? Harvest the hatchet to repair the knife or vice versa? Repair your coat to fight the cold, or craft bandages? As items, regions and game mechanics were added, this endgame was completely buried, I think nobody is experiencing it anymore. You may want to look for it by trying out a really early version via the time capsule mode on Steam.

Now I would be interested to know whether custom settings can be used to re-introduce that end-game. Meaning that you would reach it at some point. Let's say after 100 days or so. I really can't say, as I have not experimented with custom settings at all so far.

In the early days of the game, there was a controversy on these forums in which direction the game should go: certain death or endless survival. Myself, I was a member of the 'certain death' party, as I felt the always-approaching end-game gave the game a sense of doom and urgency which was quite unique. But then there many people who were looking for a Mine Craft-like experience - just chilling along, accumulating items to no end, turtling in their 'base'... heck, some were even suggesting growing plants and harvesting them. In the end, one has to say that the 'Mine Craft' faction won this - a lot of sustainable resources were added, and the end-game practically disappeared. I am not saying this is for the worse, I still love the game, and the customs settings (which were also introduced after fans asked for them, big kudos to Hinterland for this) sure allow for all sorts of experiences now. So I would really like to know whether they can also bring back the really special 'end-game'. My feeling is no, I would presume you have to restrict yourself to a single map at really hard settings to get there...

[Fuarian]

On 2/21/2020 at 4:54 AM, Hotzn said:

Interesting thoughts here, +1. I do get the general direction, but don't quite understand what the "Difficulty" represents exactly. In other words, what happens when "Difficulty" reaches 100? I presume it becomes objectively impossible to survive, no matter how astute you are? But do you die immediately, or is it just that your resources cannot grow anymore? I would presume the latter.

Having been with the game and on these forums for quite a long time, I may relate that in earlier versions of the game, you would actually reach the 'end-game' state quite early. When only one region existed - ML - you could collect and count the number of resources easily (provided you did not get killed by wolves, which could happen just as easily). You would only have so many clothes (very few actually), you could break them down into only so many pieces of cloth, and each piece of cloth could be broken down into 2 bandages. One handfight with a wolf - if you survived it at all, you needed to be a really fast clicker - gave you one bleeding wound exactly, which required one bandage. One bullet could net you one deer. One deer gave you around 8 kg of venison, one wolf maybe 4 kg of wolf meat. You could count the calories and how long they would sustain you. No cat tails, no Birch bark, no bear, no moose, no bow, no revolver. Just you, few clothes (no clothing slots etc.), maybe a rifle, a handful of rifle rounds at most, maybe a knife, bandages, wolves and deer. The endgame had a very special feeling to it, as there was no way to survive it at all. It was just a matter of time and what you could do to prolong it. You would get more and more desperate, rip up your clothes, count your resources again and again. Every piece of scrap metal or cloth became the object of heavy decisions: Repair the hatchet to be able to collect wood faster, or the knife? Harvest the hatchet to repair the knife or vice versa? Repair your coat to fight the cold, or craft bandages? As items, regions and game mechanics were added, this endgame was completely buried, I think nobody is experiencing it anymore. You may want to look for it by trying out a really early version via the time capsule mode on Steam.

Now I would be interested to know whether custom settings can be used to re-introduce that end-game. Meaning that you would reach it at some point. Let's say after 100 days or so. I really can't say, as I have not experimented with custom settings at all so far.

In the early days of the game, there was a controversy on these forums in which direction the game should go: certain death or endless survival. Myself, I was a member of the 'certain death' party, as I felt the always-approaching end-game gave the game a sense of doom and urgency which was quite unique. But then there many people who were looking for a Mine Craft-like experience - just chilling along, accumulating items to no end, turtling in their 'base'... heck, some were even suggesting growing plants and harvesting them. In the end, one has to say that the 'Mine Craft' faction won this - a lot of sustainable resources were added, and the end-game practically disappeared. I am not saying this is for the worse, I still love the game, and the customs settings (which were also introduced after fans asked for them, big kudos to Hinterland for this) sure allow for all sorts of experiences now. So I would really like to know whether they can also bring back the really special 'end-game'. My feeling is no, I would presume you have to restrict yourself to a single map at really hard settings to get there...

This is the problem. Now there is and abundance of resources, regions and game mechanics. All of these makes it easier to survive longer. So that feeling of dread and desperation of losing all your resources and having to ration is just gone. Unless like you say, you restrict yourself to one region. But that gets boring. Especially if you really want to explore. And even on one region it's incredibly easy to survive.