There is a lack of long term objectives

[oplli]

Have you ever felt like we lack of long term objectives? usually the objectives are exploring every regions, finding a home, trying to craft every type of clothes and in about 100 - 150 days you can achieve all of that. then what is there left to do? repair your clothes? , repair your tools? harvest wood? hunt? yes, but for what? I think we absolutely need some more complex and fun objectives that are not like what we have seen before.

[Mroz4k]

This has always been the "problem" with the Sandbox. But thing is - you cant really do anything about that. No matter what is added, any sort of goal you put into the game, it will be achieved at some point and then you are back at square one.

The only solution that ever works for this depends on each player. Sooner or later, objectives are done. Its up to the player to set up their own objectives afterwards and follow them.

Naturally I hope they add more "endgame" content, but in the end, no amount of endgame content will ever be enough for everyone, so the ability to create your own goals is still gonna be important for most players to enjoy the game.

[manolitode]

More long-term objectives would be much appreciated. While we do get a longer game with every new map that is added, this only happens once a year or so. And it's a double-edged sword. On the one hand every new region means more possible time spent per playthrough. On the other hand more items equals more monotonous dragging stuff back to our base, at least for us obsessive hoarders

So what type of end-game content would you like to see? 

Lots of games go for the design-your-home or design-your-village idea, which has been discussed plenty of times before on this forum. Thinking of AAA games with such expansions that I've played, the concept was usually more intriguing than the actual implementations in the end.

I would very much like to see the crafting ladder expanded. Meaning bearskin coat and moose-hide satchel is not the end. Instead you could use plenty of hides to craft larger tools. For instance, combining two bear hides and a couple of cured guts that you can twine around trees at your base to deter wolves from the area. Or you could combine 4 moose hides and 15 guts to craft an insulating floor for your fishing cabin, gaining a little warmth. 

A more simple yet palpable addition to endgame would be a more significant temperature drop starting from around day 200. Meaning you have to take measures to start preparing for the great cold before that. Preferably we would not be able to stay warm in certain caves and buildings anymore. 

[s7mar7in]

1 hour ago, Mroz4k said:

it will be achieved at some point and then you are back at square one.

Well said.

But what if there was an over-arching new game mechanic, (Think of "Cabin Fever for Maps", resulting in a temporary regional debuff due to too many days in one location or for over-harvesting a particular region), the game would simply continue with fewer resources available due to a new mechanic that changes the respawn rates of wildlife, plants, and fuel.

This would then motivate players to leave the comfort of their long-term base and relocate to a more target-rich region.

Just food for thought with lots of room for more ideas.

Edited March 13, 2021 by s7mar7in

[s7mar7in]

28 minutes ago, manolitode said:

Lots of games go for the design-your-home or design-your-village idea, which has been discussed plenty of times before on this forum.

While watching other players who stream their TLD gameplay it is quickly seen that many new players gravitate towards "base building" and love that aspect of the game.

Even very advanced players will use everything the game currently offers to build a hyper-efficient base-camp with trail markers and rock cache storage.

It seems a simple "perimeter fence building mechanic" would be a good stepping-stone addition to the games item crafting that would be in keeping with the basic survival theme of TLD.

Edited March 13, 2021 by s7mar7in

[stratvox]

I have given some thought to this.

I've spent a lot of time in the deep game; hundreds of days in where survival is not really a problem any more, just figuring out what to do is. The general solution I've found works the best is to take up a nomadic life style and cycle through the regions so that you don't hammer any one region's wildlife too hard and kill spawn areas by overhunting. It's quite zen in my opinion; truly the objective is simply continuing to live and no more, and to do so in balance with the game so that one can continue to live. I think that keeping this as a feature is definitely a major plus; my personal progression was to start and then abandon games after they got comfortable, but the time came when I wanted to get one to that five hundred day achievement so I took it there, and discovered that the meditative aspects of the deep game are a real thing. I find myself sometimes having the dude sit next to a fire in the mouth of a cave and just watch the blizzard blow while I pick up the living room.

That said, I think creating certain kinds of world events that only trigger later in the game could make for an interesting addition. For example, we have the Whiteout challenge. I think it would be pretty interesting to have something like that happen a few hundred days in, and then have it happen every hundred or so days afterwards. Set it up so there's a progression in the weather that can be remembered and recognized over a day or two that culminates in a week-long blizzard, one that causes the temperatures inside houses and caves to drop by ten or fifteen degrees, say, with an outdoor temperature at 5am of -50C. This could trigger adventures pretty easily; the need to move from where the blizzard caught you because you don't have enough food, for example. Have the harbinger a day or so ahead of time to give the aware players a chance to move to a well-supplied location to ride out the coming storm.

There is even already code that does some of this, from the 4DON challenge a year and a half back, IIRC. I think it would be cool to be able to add events like this (I'm sure other ones can be conceived of to throw wrenches into a player's comfortable life in the deep game) as an option one can select at the start; sort of "I'll play Stalker with Events, Interloper without them" kind of an idea.

The introduction of mountain lions into the game could be done like this, too... have them appear at least as rarely if not more rarely than the moose, and make them REALLY DANGEROUS while they're spawned in. All of us long gamers know that wolves and moose and bears (oh my!) aren't really that dangerous once the player knows how to manage around them... but the stalking/ambush nature of how mountain lions hunt can perhaps be exploited by the devs to make them a much bigger challenge.

Anyway. The point is to have something happen that makes the game become significantly more difficult for a limited period of time before going back to the regular deep game "wake up-gather wood-hunt-harvest-repair clothes-eat-sleep" cycle that makes up the days of the typical denizen of the quiet apocalypse.

[Syraith]

I’m not sure a danger like a mountain lion would be enjoyable unless they made it more accurate. Things like wolves and bears don’t just seek out humans. They generally avoid unless they feel in danger or are protecting their young. A hidden near/instant death addition does nothing to want me to do anything but play a custom game and turn them off.

I would prefer deeper objectives. Like the crampons. Great, climbing is easier and less chance for sprains, but nothing requires them. I can still climb up the ravine without them. Why not an area that is only accessible by having their advantage? A cliff where the first ledge is nearly 100% inaccessible without crampons (I say nearly because it could be possible for someone to strip down and drop everything to be light enough to climb it with an emergency stim). Also make the ledges small enough you can’t put out a bedroll or make a fire pit. Have the area with little human activity like Timberwolf Mountain or put an observatory or something up there with a helipad maybe.

Have a collapsed mine/tunnel where you need to make a demolition charge and box to get through it. Require a part made from the forge, milling machine and gunsmith of like lvl 4. Have a part required that is a random spawn in a region. Maybe a part in the pre-mentioned observatory. Have tiers of locations to need to access.

I liked those objectives in the story mode. Trekking to the machine shop to craft the spear, activating the radio towers, etc. A multi-day journey for an objective instead of creating your own or just surviving.

To me, ash canyon wasn’t really a huge challenge. I got there pretty easily and now just start any new game there just so I can quickly dash through and get the pack and crampons. I start off better than in a more simple area like ML or CH after hitting up the goldmine and the summit lol

Just a couple ideas I had.

Edited March 14, 2021 by Syraith

[oplli]

On 3/13/2021 at 3:25 PM, manolitode said:

A more simple yet palpable addition to endgame would be a more significant temperature drop starting from around day 200. Meaning you have to take measures to start preparing for the great cold before that. Preferably we would not be able to stay warm in certain caves and buildings anymore. 

its true that cold is a difficulty but the more you play on a single playtrough the less it becomes a problem with the warm clothes that we can find. Ill take the idea of @Syraith to mix it with yours. what if we needed to activate a radio towers in order to know aproximately when the big blizzard is comming. you would need to wait for an aurora to activate the towers and maybe it could be sustained in power by a battery so it can do its job even when the aurora is gone. after a couple of days when the battery is dead you are now able to collect the information and know when the blizzard is going to happen and how many days its should last.

On 3/13/2021 at 3:25 PM, manolitode said:

would very much like to see the crafting ladder expanded. Meaning bearskin coat and moose-hide satchel is not the end. Instead you could use plenty of hides to craft larger tools. For instance, combining two bear hides and a couple of cured guts that you can twine around trees at your base to deter wolves from the area. Or you could combine 4 moose hides and 15 guts to craft an insulating floor for your fishing cabin, gaining a little warmth. 

I like this idea

[odizzido]

One potential is to continue to make some game conditions more and more difficult over time instead of stopping at a certain point. For example if animal spawns were cut to 60% of their previous value every 15 days or whatever. So at 1, then 0.6, .36, .216, etc. Eventually you would starve to death from lack of food, but that offers a goal of getting as far as you can that can never be reached as you could never live forever.

Same thing could be done with temps, though the magic houses kinda make it not work very well.

[oplli]

37 minutes ago, odizzido said:

One potential is to continue to make some game conditions more and more difficult over time instead of stopping at a certain point. For example if animal spawns were cut to 60% of their previous value every 15 days or whatever. So at 1, then 0.6, .36, .216, etc. Eventually you would starve to death from lack of food, but that offers a goal of getting as far as you can that can never be reached as you could never live forever.

Same thing could be done with temps, though the magic houses kinda make it not work very well.

that is a grat idea maybe you could activate an option where animals decays in every maps and never restore