There is one significant aspect in Interloper that is easier than all other difficulties, and that is...

[Strelok]

... not ok.

Now you have to guess what it is and argue why its ok that it is like that.

I have now experienced all possible difficulties and many custom set games, which leads me to say that this is not ok. Interloper should be the most difficlut one in all aspects.

[Leeanda]

Well if it wasn't compared to most of my runs (on pilgrim and custom pilgrim)  I'd say lack of animals.  Interloper should have more !  And by animals I mean predators.

 

Edited July 6, 2022 by Leeanda

[conanjaguar]

I would say, choosing a weapon.

[Strelok]

6 hours ago, conanjaguar said:

I would say, choosing a weapon.

😁 Nice try.

[Pillock]

abundance of cattails, mushrooms and rosehips.

 

I think it's Ok. But then again, I don't play Interloper so I don't really care either way!

Edited July 8, 2022 by Pillock

[mfuegemann]

Interloper is much warmer at the beginning, a far as I remember. But in most cases, You need this...

[conanjaguar]

14 minutes ago, mfuegemann said:

Interloper is much warmer at the beginning, a far as I remember. But in most cases, You need this...

I would beg to differ.

[Serenity]

It's far easier to carry all your loot around

[conanjaguar]

1 hour ago, Serenity said:

It's far easier to carry all your loot around

Because there is so much less of it!

[Strelok]

On 7/8/2022 at 5:32 PM, Pillock said:

abundance of cattails, mushrooms and rosehips.

 

I think it's Ok. But then again, I don't play Interloper so I don't really care either way!

They have all the same harvestable plant availability.

[Strelok]

On 7/8/2022 at 11:30 PM, Serenity said:

It's far easier to carry all your loot around

🤣 Nice try. Yet not what am talking about.

[Strelok]

On 7/8/2022 at 6:31 PM, mfuegemann said:

Interloper is much warmer at the beginning, a far as I remember. But in most cases, You need this...

But its not. 🤓

[Leeanda]

Fading into the long dark?🙂

[conanjaguar]

Darn! This is hard!

The easiest thing is that you can eat 75% sardines and not get food poisoning!

[Guest jeffpeng]

Here are my tries:

- You don't have to choose where to start - which can be a pain. (Except for me, it's always TWM when I want an easy start)
- You don't have to choose more than two feats, which, mostly, will be Cold Fusion and Efficient Machine anyways (there are some arguments to be made for Snow Walker and Fire Master, but all the others are pretty much rubbish compared to CF and EM)
- You don't have to carry around 60kg of gear from day 2 - because there is none
- Wolf population is so diminished that spots that otherwise would be highly dangerous are just .... empty

But what I think you mean is:

- Gear is bound to a loot table, so someone with sufficient experience / sufficient google skills will know what crucial loot to find where pretty much from the start, from day two at the absolute latest.

But there is some wisdom to that, since otherwise you could easily end up in a game that is not "winnable" since it would, for example, lack a hammer, or have only one in some very obscure location, which would make Interloper not only much harder, but also very much based on luck (or lack thereof). I've been advocating for some time that the addition of a few, let's say 4, additional loot tables would mitigate a lot of this problem, but I also see how this would mean a fair bit of work that is probably better spent on other things than a game mode practically nobody plays.


 

[Strelok]

6 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

Here are my tries:

- You don't have to choose where to start - which can be a pain. (Except for me, it's always TWM when I want an easy start)
- You don't have to choose more than two feats, which, mostly, will be Cold Fusion and Efficient Machine anyways (there are some arguments to be made for Snow Walker and Fire Master, but all the others are pretty much rubbish compared to CF and EM)
- You don't have to carry around 60kg of gear from day 2 - because there is none
- Wolf population is so diminished that spots that otherwise would be highly dangerous are just .... empty

But what I think you mean is:

- Gear is bound to a loot table, so someone with sufficient experience / sufficient google skills will know what crucial loot to find where pretty much from the start, from day two at the absolute latest.

But there is some wisdom to that, since otherwise you could easily end up in a game that is not "winnable" since it would, for example, lack a hammer, or have only one in some very obscure location, which would make Interloper not only much harder, but also very much based on luck (or lack thereof). I've been advocating for some time that the addition of a few, let's say 4, additional loot tables would mitigate a lot of this problem, but I also see how this would mean a fair bit of work that is probably better spent on other things than a game mode practically nobody plays.


 

As you were the first to try to investigate more, i will now reveal what i am talking about. But first i have to say that the title is somewhat missleading. I should have written "inherent difficulty setting" instead of "aspect."

Now i have to admit that your point about loot table would actually fall into that. But... i never thought about that feature. So you got me there.

But what i am talking about is the Fatigue setting, which is high in all difficulties except ... Interloper. Where it is just medium.

Now this may sound boring and not as funny as all the creative, ironic, sarcastic guessing from all of you, its actually a significant effect.

I had 2 custom playthroughs, both are my longest ones, with Fatigue setting set differently each. And the difference of Fatigue high vs medium is quite a huge one. So much that i think this is somehow perverted.

All that said, i really dont mind, because one can choose custom game. Which i do. But naturally i would expect a higher preset difficulty not be easier in one departement with a siginificant impact on gameplay. And i know that e.g. wolf population is lower in Interloper than in Stalker, but there is a flipside to the coin, and thats pelts and meat if you know how to handle wolves, if you know what i mean. Its not only bad to have more wolves depending on your experience.

Eventually i will hear a explanation why they set the Fatigue part easy only in Interloper. There must be a reason. Yet i dont know, but i like to know.

 

 

[Strelok]

On 7/8/2022 at 11:30 PM, Serenity said:

It's far easier to carry all your loot around

 

On 7/11/2022 at 9:24 PM, Strelok said:

🤣 Nice try. Yet not what am talking about.

Actually after thinking again, you are right. In a specific sense. Because its Fatigue i am talking about. And Fatigue can have an impact on carry capacity. So you are not wrong there even though i know your not talking about the Fatigue setting.

[Guest jeffpeng]

18 hours ago, Strelok said:

But what i am talking about is the Fatigue setting, which is high in all difficulties except ... Interloper. Where it is just medium.

Right, that one I overlooked. So we got each other, I guess. Or did we? Read on...

18 hours ago, Strelok said:

Eventually i will hear a explanation why they set the Fatigue part easy only in Interloper. There must be a reason. Yet i dont know, but i like to know.

Actually fatigue is a double edged hacksaw. Yes, with lower fatigue you will have to sleep less, remain "unfatigued" for longer and hence can expend more for things like sprinting. But: With lower fatigue you will have to stay awake longer, also. Why would this be a negative? Simply because if you are playing with "rest as a resource", which all standard game modes do, you have to be fatigued to even sleep, hence you will have less opportunity to regain condition.

Now you can make the argument quite successfully that you can just tire yourself out running in circles - and you can. You, however, still pay for that with some significant additional calorie use.  But even then I would still say that lower fatigue is a net positive, even if you do not employ starvation. If you play with starvation it's a no-brainer. But one can also make a fairly convincing argument that this is not how "It's meant to be played" and also that doing so will actually result in a net negative for you unless you are severely resource constrained and/or are just sitting it out - so it sounds plausible that they would not balance against starvation but against actual "intended" gameplay.

Of course I am not sure this is the actual explanation. Maybe the actual explanation goes something much simpler like "man, Interloper is hard, it's so darn cold, I'm sprinting all the freezing time, we need to counterbalance this somehow". But I am fairly certain the actual reason has something to do with the argument I put forth.

[Strelok]

5 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

Now you can make the argument quite successfully that you can just tire yourself out running in circles - and you can. You, however, still pay for that with some significant additional calorie use.  But even then I would still say that lower fatigue is a net positive, even if you do not employ starvation. If you play with starvation it's a no-brainer.

Cannot agree more.

To boil it down to showcase where i have a issue is the following practical gameplay consequence which i dont like, but is not a problem at all because of the option to make a own custom game. Its just a intuitive observation and a subjective feeling of gameplay.

For me, the actual difference where i can "measure" this difference from those settings is my coffee and energy drink need. Its close to none in Interloper vs respectable amounts in the two digits in the high Fatigue setting in e.g. Stalker or any high Fatigue custom game.

And you could certainly agree that it would be better if Interloper has at minimum the same need for all their consumables. Its just wierd to need more of a rare and potent consumable in easier difficulties than in the highest one.

[Guest jeffpeng]

1 hour ago, Strelok said:

And you could certainly agree that it would be better if Interloper has at minimum the same need for all their consumables. Its just wierd to need more of a rare and potent consumable in easier difficulties than in the highest one.

Indeed.

In general I've been a stark proponent of some changes aiming in that direction, even more so after realizing how "soft" interloper is today compared to what it used to be - Time Capsule shows that quite impressively. Sure you can make the argument that stimulants such as coffee and energy drinks (which are a late addition anyways) are much less available in Interloper. And yes, we have Custom Mode. Still: Interloper as a standard mode has held a rather special place for the longest time, one that some people pride themselves for (reasonably so or not), and as such I think it would be very much appropriate to fix this oddity without upsetting any balance. Again: Interloper today is much, much more forgiving than what it used to be.

[Strelok]

1 hour ago, jeffpeng said:

Interloper today is much, much more forgiving than what it used to be.

1 hour ago, jeffpeng said:

coffee and energy drinks (which are a late addition anyways)

I didnt know that. Thanks for your explanation. I am realitively new to the game although i have 1k+ hours. The only thing new for me was Blackrock afaik.

[Guest jeffpeng]

Have a crack at Interloper in one of the earlier builds available through the Time Capsule. I recently picked playing Vigilant Trespass back up, and it's just darn brutal. You can find instructions on how to play it (via Steam) here https://www.thelongdark.com/time-capsule/vigilant-trespass/. The game is so much more polished now compared to what than it used to be, but you'll feel right at home, since most things work as you would expect (cooking, however, does not).

I started playing TLD around that time, but didn't really have the guts to play Interloper until years later, which was around Vigilant Flame (aka the HRV update). It's hard to fathom how people have gotten games way past the 100 day mark back then. I'm not a beginner by any standard, but those people must have been breathing TLD. The old gods, ya know 😉

[Glacia]

Weight management.

No firearms, few items to loot and less tools avaliable.

You can carry several items usually useless in lower difficulties (Like books) or 30 sticks if you want, you will have enough weight to carry this items, unlike stalker for a example, where you can get quickly overweight 😒

Also few animals, struggles are letal but you can avoid most wolves because region have a lot less animals overall.