My thoughts on each (official) challenge

[Glflegolas]

Hello folks,

Since owning the game, I have done every one of the official challenges, with the exception of As the Dead Sleep. (The latter one is supposed to be really hard!) Here are my thoughts on them:

• Hopeless Rescue: This one is excellent. It took me three attempts to do it, but when you do make it to Desolation Point, flaregun in hand, it's extremely satisfying. Coffee is black gold in this challenge on those long rope climbs up Timberwolf Mountain! Make sure to loot the coffee cargo container in Timberwolf Mountain on the way, and don't bother crafting or fixing stuff. If a Hopeless Rescue 2.0 is released, this one from the Hunting Lodge to Desolation Point -- I'd be up for that!
• The Hunted, Part One: The concept is rather cool. The only thing I wish is that the Old Bear wasn't scared of normal torches and flares. That makes this challenge really easy! If you had to use the flaregun to fend him off, it would be much harder and more satisfying. Overall, I generally enjoyed this.
• The Hunted, Part Two: Ehhh, it's alright I guess. It reminds me very strongly of how you fought the Old Bear in Episode 2 of Wintermute, prior to the REDUX: you go to various locations where the bear spawns and shoot him repeatedly. Not my top choice.
• Whiteout: It's good and quite fun IMO. Sometimes you might want to consider checking Thomson's Crossing and Desolation Point for extra gear. You can forge a hatchet if you can't find one. Getting in and out of the Quonset can be hard, however.
• Nomad: More like 'The Tour of Great Bear'. This challenge is really easy, and really boring. Definitely my least favourite in-game. I mean -- what's the fun in just sitting in a house for 72 hours straight?
• Archivist: I just finished this one today. It's good, and kinda fun to look at old files on PC's to learn a bit of backstory in game. Loads of opportunities to take screenshots of the beautiful Auroras. Not super exciting, but there's nothing wrong with that.
• As the Dead Sleep: Not attempted.
• Escape the Darkwalker: Man, this challenge was a blast!! It's like The Hunted, Part One on steroids. Running around Great Bear, protected only by your can of paint, is quite scary. My closest brush with the Darkwalker was on the Bleak Inlet Bridge. I set a lure on one end, and raced towards the other end of the bridge. At one point I wasn't more than 2m away from the Darkwalker. The toxic fog adds another element of urgency to the challenge - you must be swift or you won't survive. Coffee is 100% essential!!

To rank the challenges from favourite to least favourite: Hopeless Resue -- Escape the Darkwalker -- Whiteout -- Archivist -- The Hunted, Part One -- The Hunted, Part Two -- Nomad.

[cullam]

My favourite part about Hopeless Rescue was just how much it taught me about my limits in the game. I was still fairly new to the game, playing on Survivor, but starting to pretty reliably be able to survive for a month or two. But I would only travel short distances, and then rest up for the day. Like, I'd walk from Trappers to the Camp Office, and then spend some time looting, repairing, eating, and resting. This challenge made me go "woah, can I make it to Dam in one trip? To the Radio Tower?? To Pleasant Valley Farmstead???"
It completely opened up how I was able to play the game from then on, understanding that I could push my character a lot futher than I had before, back when I was constantly freezing, starving, lost, and being eaten by wolves.

[Glflegolas]

Good point there @cullam. In normal Survival, it's easy to "play it safe" if you will by leaving your base only when the weather's good, spending the day hunting, exploring, and searching, then heading back home in the evening, maybe doing a few repairs by the fireside, and going to sleep for the night. If you play this way, you'll likely look for shelter if the weather turns and won't go anywhere until it clears up.

The thing with Hopeless Rescue is that to finish it you have to take a few more risks than normal. If RNG is kind to you, that risk might be just travelling at night. If not, you might have to travel through a blizzard.

In my experience, it is usually possible to get from one region of Great Bear Island to any other within 2 in-game days. Getting to a particular location within that region might take more than 2 days -- especially if there's lots of rope climbing needed.

[DaGnome91]

Actually, I just played again "Nomad" to show my kids, with 1 simple condition added : if a location is already "done" (3 full days spent), you MUST leave immediately and get to the next location in less than 12h. That made me leave the Dam much earlier than the 3 days-period to get to all the Mistery Lake locations, so that when I come back I could sleep in before running to Signal Hill. Running in a blizzard to Skeeter's Ridge was hot. The climb to Mountaineer's Hut was ok, not as tough as the run for Cinder Hills Mine during a nice blizzard (wind in my back, luckily). Typical PV weather...

Nevertheless, that condition alone, as curious as it sounds, made me almost run into a bear when I had to get from the Quonset Garage to the Abandoned Harris Home and a heavy fog descended very suddenly just after I got the chance to bugger off the wolves in-between the Garage and the waterfront Cottages. Ok, I had a rifle, but with a competence still at 1, let's say I got a good mauling instead of hitting critically the damn bear (and believe me, I tried very hard to hit the head).

As Nomad is set in Voyageur difficulty, I was about 40% life, had a good laugh, managed to escape the bear and moved on to Crumbling Highway... but it hit the spot nonetheless : that's when you think you're safe that you get yourself into trouble, the biggest lesson of all in TLD. Just for that, Nomad is as good as another, only much easier to finish.

[cullam]

By the time the Nomad Challenge got added to the game, it was a little too simple for me, so I just did it as a completionist. But I think it's an excellent challenge for people starting the game, to get them to push outside of the comfort of Mystery Lake, or whatever maps they've expanded to! Give them a definite reason to go live in other places for a while, and get to know the world.
And I do love arbitrarily making challenges for myself, so it makes a lot of sense to do it for this! My recent go-tos have been no fires (not even for water), and a diet of nothing but raw meat and medicine.

[Glacia]

On 10/22/2022 at 9:38 PM, Glflegolas said:

As the Dead Sleep: Not attempted.

By far the best and most hardcore challenge in the game, highly advisable to try this one!

I think the best aspect of the challenges is playing the game in a different way, these are my opinions about every challenge:

* Hopeless Rescue:  Amazing and enjoyable, also very good for learning how to reach TWM summit on standard runs.

* The Hunted (1/2):  Not very challenging because how exploitable and easy to manage is the old bear, if you know how to play you can complete the challenge without any problem.   

* Whiteout:  Excelent;  A new concept for the game very well executed and fun to play.  There is even a mod to make your custom whitetout runs!

* Nomad:  Boring and meaningless to play, there is nothing interesting on this one. Maybe this challenge will be harder if the game settings where custom (Less loot, dangerous spots to stay, more predators, etc).

* Archivist: Lore and exploration run, i think it's very enjoyable if you like those aspects of the game. 

* Darkwalker:  Simply EPIC. I think this challenge would be much better with less resources and harder game settings, actually forcing you to loot and make complex routes and strategies.  However, with vanilla settings the challenge is incredible well executed, it fits on the game atmosphere and offers a completely new game mode.

* ATDS:  Not for everyone, but if you have mastered most of the game aspects, this is THE CHALLENGE. Seems unfair at first glance, but once you leave bleak inklet you can progress with better survival chances (Still very hard anyways).  The definitive survival challenge for experienced players!

I wish one day the game let us make custom settings for certain challenges. Nowadays a lot of players play self-impossed challenges and vanilla challenges, custom settings challenges could give the game content creators (And every player) new and fun ways to play the game.

[Glflegolas]

Update (April 2024): I have done As The Dead Sleep. I successfully completed it on the first try, going the Broken Railroad --> Hushed River Valley --> Timberwolf Mountain --> Desolation Point --> The Ravine route. My thoughts:

• Do not neglect teas! Brew up those rose-hip teas and reishi teas. Each provides 100-115 calories, not much at first glance...but when you replace all your water needs with tea it does add up. 
• Porridge! An easy food to cook that has lots of calories and provides the warming up benefit.
• Cat tails! Collect them all. There's lots to survive.
• Torches are your friend. Chain them up, use them to scare off wolves, and build new fires to warm up and heat up those teas.

Overall, it's a great challenge for experienced players.