Any idea about best 'balanced harsh' custom option between interloper and stalker for "long" survival?

[sonics01]

I played both difficulty. From both, my characters survived ~50 days so far. 

I feel interloper is doable, it depends on how you start your snowball. I usually start from Timberwolf or PV, then I search for hammer and hacksaw as soon as possible, then directly rush to Riken to make arrowhead, knife, and axe. Then pick a location then go survive-as-long-as-possible mode. Sometimes travel if I really need some critical items. On the other hand, I feel stalker is bit easy, very affluent with lots of good lootable items. Less burden to travel around because it is not that cold except some maps like BI or PV.  

But I think, for long-duration survival, major difference between two is decay rate, wildlife population reduction rate, and cloth consumption speed. In interloper, I think it is really hard to get enough amount of cloth because it is hard to loot cloths. However, in interloper, weather is getting colder faster than stalker. So, cloth upkeep is getting more and more critical. For long term survival, it feels like availability of cloth is key to me. Of course, any struggle was a big burden in interloper. 

Another problem is wildlife population decreases faster in interloper. With faster decay speed and higher calorie consumption rate, this is really critical in interloper IMO, because it is hard to upkeep the amount of food. Fishing is becoming very critical in my interloper now. 

So... I wish to enjoy some sort of "reasonable harsh mode" or "balanced harsh mode". I think many other players who enjoyed TLD may had the same idea. I was thinking of custom mode based on everything same with interloper but:  

1) Rifle and revolver (personal preference + make a reason to visit and stay in BI. Right now, in interloper, there's not much motivation/merit to visit BI when compared to a risk of coldness and timberwolves. Of course you can go to BI and stay quite good enough in cannery workers hut, but still, if you wish to stay really long, BI is very harsh place) 

2) Wildlife population reduction rate: medium (I just wish to eat meat instead of cat tails during the later stage) 

3) Item decay rate: high or medium (I think some item's decay rate in interloper is not reasonable and not scientifically possible. I think many agree with this point) 

If anyone thought about similar concept, can anyone please share? 

 

Apart from this topic, I really wish crossbow and/or musket rifle and/or repeating rifle for interloper. There are decent repeaters and musket rifles which were used during civil war. Considering that the level of technology was not that high to produce and use those weapons, such weapons would be possible to be used and maintained even in BLI. And crossbow as well. 

[piddy3825]

1 hour ago, sonics01 said:

So... I wish to enjoy some sort of "reasonable harsh mode" or "balanced harsh mode". I think many other players who enjoyed TLD may had the same idea. I was thinking of custom mode based on everything same with interloper but:  

1) Rifle and revolver (personal preference + make a reason to visit and stay in BI. Right now, in interloper, there's not much motivation/merit to visit BI when compared to a risk of coldness and timberwolves. Of course you can go to BI and stay quite good enough in cannery workers hut, but still, if you wish to stay really long, BI is very harsh place) 

2) Wildlife population reduction rate: medium (I just wish to eat meat instead of cat tails during the later stage) 

3) Item decay rate: high or medium (I think some item's decay rate in interloper is not reasonable and not scientifically possible. I think many agree with this point) 

If anyone thought about similar concept, can anyone please share? 

 

Apart from this topic, I really wish crossbow and/or musket rifle and/or repeating rifle for interloper. There are decent repeaters and musket rifles which were used during civil war. Considering that the level of technology was not that high to produce and use those weapons, such weapons would be possible to be used and maintained even in BLI. And crossbow as well. 

I think I know what your looking for and I think if you utilize the custom game mode settings, you can find your ideal "balance" just as you stated in your wish list above.  
The custom game setting was designed with a sharing feature in mind in that you can configure a game setting, capture that code and share those particular game parameters with the community.  Since the inception of that feature into the game, I don't recall seeing or hearing very much about folks sharing their custom game settings.
Part of that could be due to the fact that achievements are disabled in custom game settings, so if your trying to get a merit badge for snaring 100 rabbits or drinking 250 cups of coffee or whatever, those achievements aren't going to happen.  

On the other hand, having personally launched dozens of games using custom settings, I do believe it's possible to create an environment that is even harsher than the normal Interloper setting.  That being said, I've honestly had my share of frustrations with custom game settings.  Sometimes the features you want really dialed in don't seem to materialize and sometimes they do, it seems to be a hit or miss situation.  Maybe it's the ambiguous way the settings work, I'm sometimes not sure if I am making it harder or easier...  more items or less... more items in containers... less items in container...   I've ended up with some interesting scenarios, but the one that stands out the most was when I some how turned off wolves accidentally and didn't  know it while at the same time making the bear and moose super aggressive.  Plus they could sense me from far away.   the deer would bolt as soon as got anywhere nearby  and the bear and moose would attack whenever they saw me!  I didn't realize anything was amiss for a few days of in game play, I thought I was just getting lucky not running into wolves, lol.    So be sure to spend some time tweaking those settings and see what you end up with.  Have fun and good luck!

[turtle777]

Try the “Outcast” scenario. 
Not sure if I would call it a “balanced” in-between, but it’s an interesting take on Interloper. 
 

-t

 

[odizzido]

I think the question is what do you enjoy? Personally I like seeing death slowly take hold so I turn off sleep health regen and have awake regen on low so it takes a long time to heal.

[sonics01]

On 6/28/2020 at 8:14 PM, turtle777 said:

Try the “Outcast” scenario. 
Not sure if I would call it a “balanced” in-between, but it’s an interesting take on Interloper. 

Thanks, I will check this more later. 

On 6/28/2020 at 9:29 PM, odizzido said:

I think the question is what do you enjoy? Personally I like seeing death slowly take hold so I turn off sleep health regen and have awake regen on low so it takes a long time to heal.

I think some conditions of interloper is not reasonable neither realistic. Some conditions are just there to push player to challenges, without any considerations to realism and real world physics/chemistry/biochemistry and etc... It is not like I cannot stand with it all, but sometimes I feels like some of these conditions are too ridiculous, which takes more immersion from this game.

Aurora and EMP is also a silly story, but that is whole base of this game so I cannot touch that. However, some options, like cabin fever, and too fast decay speed... they are just silly. Is TLD world experiencing the invasion from alien micro organisms? No foods can be ruined in the snow or cold temperature like that, and it is impossible for parasites to survive in cooking temperature or extreme cold temperature. I value immersion to the world very importantly when I play the game. TLD is good in general, but these silly tricks makes me laugh and annoying. 

However, making decay option medium will make the game too easy. So I was looking for realistic custom mode but with some balance and challenge. Slow healing temperature looks reasonable and good idea.

 

 

[odizzido]

You sound like me. All the things you list are exactly what I would shift the focus away from. I think we are going to have to wait for modding to be added in before we can change the game to what better suits us. Hopefully it opens enough that I can write in my own indoor equations+variables for cold and such, but we will see.

edit------------

One thing I was considering doing is simply disabling wolves. Even on low settings wolves are all over and they're extremely easy to kill which means they're an easy source of food. The only issue I have with that is that they are a potential source of damage so I am not sure how that would work out overall. If you decide to try that let me know how it feels.

Edited June 30, 2020 by odizzido

[Serenity]

Cloth isn't that much of an issue in Interloper. There is less of it, because a lot of buildings are burned down, but still lots of it. In MT, PV and CH there is hundreds just from the curtains. And later on you need less of it because most of your clothing will be from animals. Very, very long term you can get rid of some marginal items like socks.

[turtle777]

The Outcast scenario has regeneration happen only during sleep. Plus, you need more water than usual (I would estimate 1.5-2x as much).

 

It makes survival quite hard, but eliminates threats from wildlife.

 

-t

[sonics01]

On 6/29/2020 at 10:34 PM, odizzido said:

One thing I was considering doing is simply disabling wolves. Even on low settings wolves are all over and they're extremely easy to kill which means they're an easy source of food. The only issue I have with that is that they are a potential source of damage so I am not sure how that would work out overall. If you decide to try that let me know how it feels.

Removing wolf from the game looks reasonable, but they are also difficulty factor IMO, especially very early stage when player has no weapon yet. In interloper, flares are very hard to gather, so my only way method was rush to the building, and rush to Riken for bow and arrow.  

I wish if there are custom option to manage the spawn of normal wolves and timberwolves during game. Currently we can only see timberwolves in BI. But I think devs will eventually include timberwolves in other area... 

17 hours ago, Serenity said:

Cloth isn't that much of an issue in Interloper. There is less of it, because a lot of buildings are burned down, but still lots of it. In MT, PV and CH there is hundreds just from the curtains. And later on you need less of it because most of your clothing will be from animals. Very, very long term you can get rid of some marginal items like socks.

Well, I'm not that "great" at this game yet, wolf struggles gave me some challenge to acquire enough cloths at some point of my game. But yeah you are right, in my interloper game, my character also wears almost all leathers. 

4 hours ago, turtle777 said:

The Outcast scenario has regeneration happen only during sleep. Plus, you need more water than usual (I would estimate 1.5-2x as much).

It makes survival quite hard, but eliminates threats from wildlife.

Well this is not exactly what I have in mind but these settings gave me some idea and insight. Thanks to share this post. 

[odizzido]

Yeah. I wish I could cut the number of wolves by like 10-20X but make them much deadlier somehow.

[sonics01]

On 7/1/2020 at 1:12 AM, odizzido said:

Yeah. I wish I could cut the number of wolves by like 10-20X but make them much deadlier somehow.

Regarding the wildlife setting for "realistic but challenging" custom mode, how do you think about the same setting with Interloper, but only change the wildlife population decrease rate to medium (stalker difficulty option)? 

[odizzido]

The decrease over time, from my understanding, drops the number of animals some but only to a certain point. I don't see it making too big of a difference so I don't really have much of an opinion on this. I don't know the numbers though.

Something I would like to try out and see how it feels is drop the number of all animals significantly, increase the roaming area of them, and also make foot prints last a lot longer but decay with wind+snow. That way animals are less predictable as to where they are but if you're observant you can track them down in the right weather. Or you can get lucky.

Now obviously you would get a lot less meat overall so the amount of calories on each animal would need to be bumped. I would probably bump the cal/kg to realistic amounts(1870 on deer at cooking 5, for example) and increase the number of kg of meat on each animal as well.

Each kill can be harder to get, but more rewarding. Personally I think that sounds more fun than swarms of animals everywhere in their tight little areas. But I've never tried it so I can't say yet. I find once you start actually playing around with ideas you get a much better idea of what works and doesn't in the actual game.

And anyways nobody knows how modable this game will be either so who knows what is even possible.

[Screenshot Pilgrim]

I've been using custom settings almost exclusively since they became part of the game.  I've found the best way is to document and test out different settings as much as you can.  It's time consuming, but you'll get to see different ways the game can unfold.  I personally like low resources, scarce wildlife*, and harsh weather, but also like to take my time and stretch the game out using slower decay and medium health settings.  I usually have rifles in game since it's a logical thing to find on a formerly inhabited island that's home to deer, wolves and bears.  Although with low resources, it has often taken me a while to find one.  Once it took until day 70.

* This includes fishing - very frustrating and dangerous to spend all day or night and get only 2 to 3 lbs of meat. Or sometimes nothing. 😬 It's happened to me several times. Also uses lots of firewood to keep warm during fishing hole sessions.  Still, you gotta get those skills up.  And what a rush to be starving badly and finally land a 10+ lb coho!

[piddy3825]

54 minutes ago, Screenshot Pilgrim said:

I've been using custom settings almost exclusively since they became part of the game. 

 

On 6/23/2020 at 7:18 PM, sonics01 said:

So... I wish to enjoy some sort of "reasonable harsh mode" or "balanced harsh mode". I think many other players who enjoyed TLD may had the same idea. I was thinking of custom mode based on everything same with interloper but:  

Hey fellas, my two cents...
As I recall, when custom settings were introduced part of the idea was that folks could "share" their "custom games" via the code that is generated when the game is launched.  I guess the idea is we share the code, which is probably exactly how Winter's Embrace works currently, except for the part where I put the code in myself.  I've never seen any discussion in the forums on sharing custom game codes but it might be worth throwing the dice and seeing what comes up.    Seems to me there's always lots of discussions about game balance and whatnot so I'd think there maybe some interest could be generated.  Look how "Share your Screenshot" blew up over the years.  This could be huge!

I just tweaked a powder puff game for my niece, turned off blizzards and turned on high intensity auroras!   Every day is nice day and the lights are on at night!  lol

 

[sonics01]

 

OK, here's what I'm thinking. Basically the same with interloper difficulty, but change the following
 

A. Calorie burn rate = "High" (from Very High of interloper), Thirst rate = "Very High" (from High of interloper). 

A typical human requires to drink 2.7~3.7 liter per day. 

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/water/art-20044256#:~:text=So how much fluid does,fluids a day for women

Quote

So how much fluid does the average, healthy adult living in a temperate climate need? The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine determined that an adequate daily fluid intake is:

About 15.5 cups (3.7 liters) of fluids for men
About 11.5 cups (2.7 liters) of fluids a day for women

Meanwhile, according to the survival rule of 3, humans can live without food for 3 weeks. 

https://www.backcountrychronicles.com/wilderness-survival-rules-of-3/#:~:text=Survival Rule of 3 and Survival Priorities&text=You can survive for 3,sheltered from a harsh environment)

Quote

You can survive for 3 Minutes without air (oxygen) or in icy water
You can survive for 3 Hours without shelter in a harsh environment (unless in icy water)
You can survive for 3 Days without water (if sheltered from a harsh environment)
You can survive for 3 Weeks without food (if you have water and shelter)

So I think it would be more realistic + reasonable to make a higher thirst rate and decrease the hunger rate a bit. 

 

B. At-rest condition recovery rate = "Low" (from Medium of interloper), and Condition recovery rate = "None" (from Medium of interloper). 

Players need to almost constantly walk/run while carrying a backpack which weighs averagely 20~40kg. In this condition, the recovery of any disease/injury during the day while walking/running would be impossible. Plus, even during the rest, typical human beings never recover that fast like TLD. Even a simple sprain of wrist/ankle typically takes several days to recover in real life. So, I think it would be more realistic + reasonable to set low recovery speed during sleep, and no recovery during the day. (But still, IMO this is very forgiving setting than real life)  

 

C. Cabin Fever = No. 

This silly rule really needs to go away. They should bring more realistic mental affliction to this game IMO, I already wrote about mental affliction idea in wish list forum. And, let's keep parasite Yes. Parasite in cooked food is silly, but, for the sake of difficulty, parasite option would be better to be included. I really wish Hinterland change these food-poisoning/parasite mechanics more realistic in the future. Plus, it would be great to include salt as very rare and important item, and introduce food-preserving skill, and craftable preserved food such as jerky or etc. 

D. Item decay rate = Medium/Low (from Very High of interloper)
Foods typically very slowly decompose in sub-freezing temperature conditions. The medium setting would represent a more realistic condition I assume, but some say "low" is more realistic. I don't know who is more correct. But decay rate shouldn't be greater than "High" if we consider reasonable food decomposition. 

On the other hand, I wish if there's an option of chance of wildlife stealing the food of players if the player put any foods on the ground. From bear to seagulls, any wildlife attempts to do such things when they smell something. It would be great to introduce some types of seagulls too, which are specialized to steal player's food. 

 

E. Rifle = Yes, Revolver = No (but Yes for revolver might be also OK) 
Introducing Revolver is absolutely fine and realistic. But, for the sake of difficulty, I think it would be more challenging only with Rifle, which already takes out some difficulty when compared to the interloper setting. However, I think the rifle wouldn't be a too big bonus or plus to the game, first because it is really heavy, and second it requires ammo, and third, accuracy will be impacted by coldness, and the weather is usually very cold in interloper setting. On the other hand, I feel like revolver can make the game too comfortable and less challenging against wolves. But again, introducing revolver is absolutely fine as well IMO, and in fact, that would be more realistic. 

 

F. Wildlife behavior and spawn. 
Now, this is the part where I still couldn't find the answer. I'm no wildlife expert and the condition/environment of maps in TLD is far different from real nature. For me, it is very hard to even imagine what would be a more realistic and reasonable setting. 
However, based on opinions from folks in this post, I'm suggesting:

"Medium (from High of interloper)" spawn chance for fish, wolf, timberwolf, bear, and moose

+ "Low" spawn chance for deer and rabbit

+ "Medium" wildlife population reduction rate (from High of interloper)

+ "Medium" wildlife respawn time?

But maybe the "High" wildlife population reduction rate would make this game more challenging. 
On the other hand, change Scent Increase from blood/meat setting to "High (from Medium in interloper)", which would lead predators to react to the player from much further away. Wildlife smell range is already "High" for the interloper setting, let's not touch that. Plus, I suggest "Far (from Medium of interloper)" for Wildlife Detection Range. This will make the hunt/fight (especially ambush) more challenging. 
I wish to hear more about Wildlife behavior and spawn, any opinions are welcome. 

 

This setting gave me: 8snM-eh8O-Lxty-S6CO-r0IB (is this small L? or capital I?) 

 

In this setting, due to low/none recovery, you need to get rest really well. And drink birch tea if condition is critical. Weather and temperature settings are the same with loper game, so it will be really cold. Management of condition bar and body temperature will be greatly important. Plus, because of very high thirst rate, 10hr sleep will take out some condition due to dehydration, I guess 8hr or 9hr would be better. You will going to hoard a lot of water bottles, and you will need 6 pots as soon as possible.

Item loot conditions are the same with loper game. You still need to rush to TWM or PV or HRV to get hammer and/or saw, then rush to Riken to get a knife and an axe. Since the rifle (and revolver) is allowed, and to use the milling machine repair, BI would be a good choice to set up a med-term or long-term base. 

Wildlife will be less dense then typical interloper, but more challenging to hunt. Especially any "ambush" will be really hard. 

I welcome any other suggestions. 

 

 

PS) Regarding wildlife spawn rate, how about: 

All "Low" spawn chance for all animal types and fish

+ "Low" (or "Medium") wildlife population reduction rate

+ "High" (or "Medium") wildlife respawn time. 

And High smell range, High scent increase, and Far wildlife detection range. 

This will definitely decrease the animal population density, and will respawn time longer than interloper. But animals will more aggressive and careful, and more difficult to fight against. Still, you will be able to see animals in late game, because of low (or med) wildlife population reduction rate. This setting could partially solve the issue of the lack of late-game contents. 

In this case the code will be: 8snM-eh8N-Lytu-y5iO-b8lA

 

This is a bit different story, but I really wish to see Big cat as a predator in this game. I already saw a lot of suggestions regarding Big cats and polar bear in Wishlist forum, and I agree. Very rare number, but can cover very wide region across multiple maps, hiding from player's sight but continuously stalking player, and backstab only during the night, and only when the player when their condition is below certain point. 

Edited July 8, 2020 by sonics01

[Screenshot Pilgrim]

Looks well thought out, @sonics01.   Have a go and let us know..

[odizzido]

The biggest problem I have with thirst in TLD is that your water storage is so low. You can drink until your character cannot drink any more, sleep for 12hrs, and literally wake up dying of thirst. I don't mind drinking 3L a day but I dislike not being able to have a good nights sleep without literally dying of thirst. It's just as bad as eating a deer, an entire deer, in two days. It's a level of babysitting that is going too far for me and it hurts my enjoyment of the game.

[sonics01]

On 7/11/2020 at 1:08 AM, odizzido said:

The biggest problem I have with thirst in TLD is that your water storage is so low. You can drink until your character cannot drink any more, sleep for 12hrs, and literally wake up dying of thirst. I don't mind drinking 3L a day but I dislike not being able to have a good nights sleep without literally dying of thirst. It's just as bad as eating a deer, an entire deer, in two days. It's a level of babysitting that is going too far for me and it hurts my enjoyment of the game.

Well, even in loper, possible full-rest-time without condition damage due to dehydration is 10hr, as far as I know, I never slept 12 hr, even 11 hr in loper game so far. But in this setting, I found 10hr rest also makes dehydration issue. So, depending on the situation, I usually rest 8hr, sometimes 9hr. This dehydration issue is increasing some difficulty, because I set no condition recover during the day, and low condition recover at rest. Rest time is not enough, condition recovery rate is slower than loper, and weather is too cold, losing condition too fast. Obviously this setting throws much hard ball at early stage when compared to typical loper. (But not like ATDS challenge game) 

At the same time, I think dehydration wouldn't annoy me after early stage, once I roll the snowball and set up the base. It is just matter of a luck and time, how fast I find hammer and hacksaw, make tools, hunt some and craft coats, and how fast I get the cooking pot (and don't forget to bring after use). Finding cooking pot is an issue as well. Fortunately, I start from HRV and I think I will going to find some from Milton, hopefully.

 

Edited July 12, 2020 by sonics01