TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY, Part Two is Here!

[Coristun]

1 hour ago, ChillPlayer said:

To the people complaining that Tales are not in Interloper - but you did get the point that Bunkers now are part of Interloper, right? So if you need a reason to explore the maps, that's quite a valid reason.

That being said, yes I was a bit surprised too that Tales are not part of loper but then, so are many other things and the concious choice by the Dev team to not add it, certainly does not warrant the hostility some are displaying in this thread.

Besides, what you might get in loper is not really worth the hassle, even in Stalker after finding some caches I asked myself why I went into the trouble of waiting for an aurora, being attacked by an aurora wolf because I was so focused on the signal, despite having shot him twice with my Rifle, only to find a cache full of flares and a flashlight.

The only reason for my to go on is the rifle holster which - guess what - is of no use in Interloper

 

 

The rifle holster was a goal from the new update you gave yourself and enjoyed accomplishing it enough you told a story about it. How can you say that and not understand why "tales', a world wide goal, not being in interloper would make players upset? Clearly not an interloper player. Once you interloper you don't go back.

[ChillPlayer]

4 minutes ago, Coristun said:

Clearly not an interloper player. Once you interloper you don't go back.

LoL

 

[Coristun]

2 hours ago, yoli said:

This looks like a wonderful update, downloading it right now and eager to try it.

As was mentioned many times already, the new tale not being available in interloper mode is kind of an... interfloper? 😁 I am not very good myself at interloper mode, but I can understand this is frustrating to many users, I think Hinterland should think about reintegrating interloper in the loop (don't mess with interloper players, they are the strongest!).

 

Well said

[Sherri]

This looks really really awesome & I can't wait to play it. Good work it looks like a really fun addition!

 

Although, even as a Voyage-Stalker player myself... I can't fathom why this would not be available to Interloper players. The most diehard, long-term, dedicated players get ignored? I don't care if the mandatory aurora navigation would make it blindingly hard on interloper - those players would welcome the challenge. This has to be a mistake. Just put minimal loot in there & let the 'loper players have some story & crazy-hard goals to work for. It doesn't even matter if it's hard to balance it. Err on the side of *crazy-hard* and the interloper-tough survivors  will love it.

This doesn't even affect me & I find it to be quite sad. These are the players who put in the time & practise to get 'loper level good. They deserve this too.

Edited March 31, 2023 by Sherri

[Coristun]

1 hour ago, Serenity said:

And that's fine. I don't think it needs an adjustment. It's not the environment that will kill you. It's not running out of resources. It's overconfidence and your own complacency. You get used to things going well and start taking risks. Then you let your condition go down and run into a wolf or a bear that you'd have avoided early on.

Spot on!

[UpUpAway95]

41 minutes ago, Coristun said:

DON'T GIVE ME SOME GAME EXPERIENCE BS WHY YOU'RE LEAVING"TALES" OUT OF INTERLOPER. IT'S UP TO THE PLAYER TO DECIDE THE EXPERIENCE, THAT'S THE GREAT THING ABOUT THIS GAME AND WAS RAPHAEL'S INGENIOUS REASON FOR MAKING THE LONG DARK!!! TALES IS COMPLETELY OPTIONAL PLEASE PUT IT IN INTERLOPER!!!

Firstly, shouting is unnecessary.  I agree with the statement that it is up to the player to decide the experience.  That is why I tend to only play custom games and the reason I have suggested in the the past that they eliminate the standard difficulties altogether and start everyone off by familiarizing them with the custom menu (which I hope will continue to be expanded as new gameplay features are added to the game)... giving the player more freedom in, for example, toggling different mixes of the various animals on or off and even more control in determining which sorts of clothing or weapons might be found around the map.  I'd also like the opportunity to change these selections without having to start a new save file each time... enabling the player to freshen things up by not only increasing the difficulty but by changing the "nature" of the gameplay.  So many players (even interloper ones) complain about the game getting boring as they get increasingly "comfortable" in the world with stashes of supplies established where they want/need them.  I think allowing some mid-save "custom" changes would help circumvent some of this.

However, every time I've suggested this, I've been lambasted by players who want their expertise to be able to be compared readily with other players... establishing their dominance to other more average players by bragging about being "interloper" players... gamer egotism is a common thing.  So, the reality is that the standard interloper experience is set by the devs and always has been... something, I doubt HL will change things to give players the true ability to "create their own experience" anytime soon.  In this particular case, their choice for "standard" interloper is to not include this tale for the reasons they stated.  Of course, you are welcome to try to change their minds... but lose the shouting, please.

To the devs - I would love to see a toggle in the custom menu that turns the "tale" on or off independent of the baseline resources setting selected.

Edited March 31, 2023 by UpUpAway95

[I_eat_only_wolf_meat]

2 hours ago, colzboppo said:

Voyager/Stalker/Pilgrim modes are too easy, offer too much loot, and the use of guns trivialises the challenge to survive in such a bleak world and so it holds little interest to me to play.

This is mostly how I feel about it as well.  I don't want to spend hours grinding a stalker run to see the new content, I want to play it in my 500 day+ interloper run which I feel is the most interesting mode to play in.  I loved the first installment because I always go into these things "blind", without any knowledge of the new maps or what I might find.  So there was real (in-game) danger to my interloper run as I explored the airfield and environs.  Finding the cabin was amazing, and I loved it!

I hope Hinterland will consider making adjustments so that the new survival mode content can be seen by all players.

[Jotunheim]

1 hour ago, Coristun said:

DON'T GIVE ME SOME GAME EXPERIENCE BS WHY YOU'RE LEAVING"TALES" OUT OF INTERLOPER. IT'S UP TO THE PLAYER TO DECIDE THE EXPERIENCE, THAT'S THE GREAT THING ABOUT THIS GAME AND WAS RAPHAEL'S INGENIOUS REASON FOR MAKING THE LONG DARK!!! TALES IS COMPLETELY OPTIONAL PLEASE PUT IT IN INTERLOPER!!!

No need for the screaming and yelling. Just make a custom game to your liking.

[I_eat_only_wolf_meat]

45 minutes ago, Sherri said:

I don't care if the mandatory aurora navigation would make it blindingly hard on interloper - those players would welcome the challenge.

You get it.  It would be difficult, but we like it difficult.  Once you get some hours in of dodging timberwolf packs in interloper, aurora navigation shouldn't be an impossible task. 

[UpUpAway95]

53 minutes ago, I_eat_only_wolf_meat said:

You get it.  It would be difficult, but we like it difficult.  Once you get some hours in of dodging timberwolf packs in interloper, aurora navigation shouldn't be an impossible task. 

One has always been able to make a "more difficult than loper" setting in the Custom menu... so why does it always boil down to pressuring HL to change their take on their standard difficulty?  Now, with this, they are even complaining about not being able to continue a Loper file with a changed setting (i.e. one that HL has determined is not generally suited to their standard Interloper vision).  Allowing custom settings to be changed without starting a new file would circumvent this.  If people want to play a "standard" difficulty they should live with whatever HL determines is appropriate for their "standard."  Interloper players are not being "ignored."  They have a myriad of options to play with the Tale in a very difficult save manner.  Those options are "customizations."  One that is currently missing is the ability to toggle theTale on or off separate from Baseline Resources in custom... and the ability to change individual custom settings without starting a whole new save file.

Edited March 31, 2023 by UpUpAway95

[Dr. S.]

7 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

One has always been able to make a "more difficult than loper" setting in the Custom menu... so why does it always boil down to pressuring HL to change their take on their standard difficulty?

I think you have it exactly backwards. If HL makes it possible (even easy) to create an "interloper" game with the new content through the use of custom settings, what exactly is the point of not including that content in interloper itself? Why make the player jump through the hoops of setting up a custom game?

[KirbyAWD]

Quote

With every update to #thelongdark, I really ask myself of the relative cost/benefit to having a more "hardcore" contingent to a player community, in our case, Interloper players.

Source

When Raph tweeted this, it was discouraging. From the streamers I watch, to my own play style after 700+ hours, it just felt so disheartening that the creator of a game I love so much showed his true colors about the dedicated interloper players.

I've continued to recommend this game over the years to people of all gaming experience levels. From friends who would just enjoy the relaxation of exploring on Pilgrim, to others who treat it more like a roguelike and want maximum challenge, I've always said you can play the game at your own comfort level. Well, now I can't really say that's completely true. Increasingly over the course of this DLC rollout, it's become clear that in order to experience the paid DLC content, we would need to play *any other difficulty* other than interloper.

I've said in the past that I was happy to pay for any DLC to support the hours of enjoyment that this game has given me, and I still feel that way. I can't ask my friends/family who have purchased the game at my recommendation to do the same.

Raph essentially boiling down the value of long term players to a cost/benefit model, just doesn't sit right with me. I didn't feel like this as a TLD fan and player previously.

[Moosemaster]

7 minutes ago, Dr. S. said:

I think you have it exactly backwards. If HL makes it possible (even easy) to create an "interloper" game with the new content through the use of custom settings, what exactly is the point of not including that content in interloper itself? Why make the player jump through the hoops of setting up a custom game?

For the reasons they states in the text you quoted. Because most players who play interloper play it for the challenge. And the loot you get from the tales eliminates a lot of that challenge. They explain in the video why they don't add it to basic interloper. No matter what people are going to be upset with the change to interloper. So its easier to cater towards the masses while allowing the others to add it if they want

[stratvox]

17 hours ago, Renn said:

As much as I love Hinterland... I do feel they keep doing this to themselves. They promised updates every 8-10 weeks this year, but we had to wait much longer to even get news on Part 2, which means people complain there's no updates.

I think that a lot of this comes down to the problems they encountered with the Mac version which became apparent very shortly after TFTFT's initial release. I work in the software industry and generally in small houses and I think it's probably pretty safe to say that the diversion of company resources to figure out and fix the mac problems put everything else back on its heels, because that's what happens in small dev shops when a total "must fix ASAP or company death will ensue" problem comes along. Remember that the actual mac problems only got resolved a few weeks ago. Now obviously people were able to work on parallel tracks, but this would have had strong knock on effects in areas such as regression testing, play testing, etc and absolutely would effect the release cycle because the last thing they want to do is to have to repeat further regression testing after fixing the mac version because a bunch of other features got released for other platforms. Not only that, but while the issue with mac was being resolved I figure it's a pretty solid bet on my part (given that I know _know_ what was happening in their office) that anyone with platform chops would've been pulled off whatever they were doing and assigned to work on fixing the mac issues that were realised once TFTFT was released to the wider public. 

I do know that the people where I work (distributed numeric computation software) pull their hair out repeatedly because of Apple's insistence on Going Their Own Way wrt 3d graphical rendering standards which means we get to keep a parallel track going supporting that stuff strictly for mac hardware and which basically doubles the amount of dev time devoted to building *and maintaining* the capability and availability of our software on Mac... and that Metal (Apple's 3D api) has been a moving target for a long time now.

[hozz1235]

I haven't read through all 5 pages of this, but I'd like to address the lopers who are upset.  I apologize if this has already been said.  

No one is saying you can't play Tales, you just can't play it on Interloper setting.  If you want to experience Tales, create a game specifically designed to do that.  Once you have finished the tale, go back to your normal loper game.  This way you can experience the DLC without souring the true intention of the loper setting.

[Dan_]

I've been playing the game forever and I think I can call dibs on being one of the seasoned "interlopists" of the forums. Honestly, I don't mind that the tales are not on Loper because custom mode makes anything possible, pretty much. Interloper is really easy to play once you figure it out, we're just used to it as a base difficulty. If you want something truly hard, you create a custom run.

I understand if people don't like meddling with the settings, I also had a bit of prejudice against it when custom was first introduced because I felt like we needed to play the game like HL balances it out to be played, and that's through the standard difficulty levels. That was a premature judgement of an awesome feature. 

Well, maybe y'all shouldn't listen to me, I'm very excited about the new beachcombing.  

[UpUpAway95]

30 minutes ago, Dr. S. said:

I think you have it exactly backwards. If HL makes it possible (even easy) to create an "interloper" game with the new content through the use of custom settings, what exactly is the point of not including that content in interloper itself? Why make the player jump through the hoops of setting up a custom game?

I did say earlier that people were welcome to try to change their minds about their standard... but that doesn't mean they (as standard interloper players) are "being ignored" or that they cannot effectively play the Tales at a difficulty level they can enjoy.  Interloper has NEVER been the most difficult setting to play the game (just as Pilgrim has never been the easiest one).  Those options are in the custom menu.  Right now, whether you agree with HL or not, they have made a conscious decision to leave the Tale out of THEIR standard for Interloper, but that doesn't mean that the Tale cannot be played by players who love hard difficulty.  You can, for example, use Baseline Resources Medium, but lower the amount of loot below standard stalker levels by increasing, for example, the "empty container density" and decreasing "loose item availability" settings to their respective maximums/minimums.  You can make the wolves as abundant as stalker and still have them deal as much as damage and be as agressive as they are in interloper.  You can eliminate condition recovery... and enjoy the difficulty while playing the Tale.

What HL puts into their "standard" is their choice and does not mean that the players don't have other options even now when the current missing toggle is to turn the Tale on or off separately from the Baseline Resources setting.  I would love to HL put that in... along with the ability to change custom settings without having to start a new save file.  I see no reason to always pressure them to change their "standard."

Edited March 31, 2023 by UpUpAway95

[Mistral]

If there was a fifth NOGOA/Deadman difficulty level (as there should be as it is the best way to play the game as I always say) leaving the Tales + luxury items out of THAT would be logical. I doubt there would be too many complaints about that. But it doesn't really make sense doing that for Interloper. Especially as you can basically live forever in that mode anyway.

Edited March 31, 2023 by Mistral

[ChillPlayer]

I wonder if any of the Interloper player who are complaining about Tales missing, have played the new content on Stalker at all? I have and I also played alot of Interloper and I really don't see the two mix well. Tales gameplay is more action-like, you run around with a rifle, crossing wolf/bear infested territory because that's where the signal is pointing you, some caches might even be within the territory of a pack of aurora wolves. Good luck with that, you might get one with a bow but hardly ever three. And you wouldn't get anything more than you might get from the bunkers which - as mentioned - are now in Interloper too. I don't say it wouldn't be possible but you'd have to be much much more careful with way less rewards than on Stalker.

And spare me the ideas like "oh, one extra pack of herbal tea or coffee would've made this all worthwile". No, it wouldn't. On Interloper to survive forever you need firestarters, cloths, an axe, pot, bedroll and bow and everything else is just extra.

Personally it doesn't bother me at all that it is not in Interloper. If anything I'm glad that it's missing because although I play loper with a survival mind, reducing aurora trips to a bear minimum, I know myself well enough that I'd try. And then my 500 days run gets eaten by a wolf and I'd go to the forum complaining about who in their right mind decided to add Tales to Interloper

What I do like though is that Stalker has got a reason to be played again, booting up those memories of the good old days when there was no Interloper in the game and every playthrough was made with a rifle. I would've wished though that the new mechanics weren't based on auroras because I really don't like (waiting for) auroras.

 

[Renn]

To everyone saying that us "hardcore" interloper fans can just create a Stalker game and experience the Tale all the same, or just make a custom game, I have to ask:

What if it was the other way around? What if, in the update video yesterday (and not any time before that) they announced that the Tale would only be available in Interloper, because they felt the lower difficulties didn't need extra loot and incentives. Would you be responding the same way you are now? Would you be like "Well, we'll just create a completely new run on Interloper for one time to experience the Tale! It's no big deal!"

Or would you be upset that you didn't get to experience the Tale the way you wanted to?

 

Or, let me guess, it's "not the same".

[Renn]

1 minute ago, ChillPlayer said:

Personally it doesn't bother me at all that it is not in Interloper. If anything I'm glad that it's missing because although I play loper with a survival mind, reducing aurora trips to a bear minimum, I know myself well enough that I'd try. And then my 500 days run gets eaten by a wolf and I'd go to the forum complaining about who in their right mind decided to add Tales to Interloper

 

But are you being forced to do the Tale? As someone said before, give me the choice to opt out, rather being denied it alltogether. 

[Serenity]

39 minutes ago, Moosemaster said:

Because most players who play interloper play it for the challenge. And the loot you get from the tales eliminates a lot of that challenge

I understand that it takes work to balance the loot across difficulties. I figure they maybe don't want to do that for a small number of players.

But the argument in of itself doesn't make sense. Loot availability is only a challenge at the beginning. By the time you can do the Tales and are comfortable walking around at night outside during an aurora you're settled. The challenge then comes from the temperature and wild life. Loot isn't a problem. It's always nice to find some things like matches or a whetstone, but once you have the basics like hacksaw, hammer and bedroll you are not running around desperately to find more loot in order to survive. Loot availability was only ever a challenge in very early EA when you only had a literal handful of maps.

We also get memento caches and prepper bunkers in Interloper now. Which work fine. They give you some goddies, but they don't really make the overall experience easier.

Edited March 31, 2023 by Serenity

[ChillPlayer]

8 minutes ago, Renn said:

What if it was the other way around?

Fair question. It wouldn't bother me probably because I play both but I see what you mean. For context, the original hardest mode was always Stalker. They added Interloper as a hardcore mode and that's why I'd say it's okay to treat it differently from the other mode. Would it be the other way around then I'm sure they would explain it in a way I could understand, but this hardly would make any sense because as said, Interloper is a special mode.

Having said that, given the Sh-Storm that this decision has created, I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to add it to loper in a future update. But again, I am certain that the joy some will feel then will very quickly be diminished, once they realize what little they've got for how much trouble they went through.

Edited March 31, 2023 by ChillPlayer

[UpUpAway95]

8 minutes ago, Renn said:

To everyone saying that us "hardcore" interloper fans can just create a Stalker game and experience the Tale all the same, or just make a custom game, I have to ask:

What if it was the other way around? What if, in the update video yesterday (and not any time before that) they announced that the Tale would only be available in Interloper, because they felt the lower difficulties didn't need extra loot and incentives. Would you be responding the same way you are now? Would you be like "Well, we'll just create a completely new run on Interloper for one time to experience the Tale! It's no big deal!"

Or would you be upset that you didn't get to experience the Tale the way you wanted to?

 

Or, let me guess, it's "not the same".

That's still possible for a future Tale... we don't know how they plan to implement the next one.  I'd say the same thing... Pilgrim and Voyageur are their visions... their standard difficulties.  They control absolutely what goes into them and what doesn't.  Custom is where HL has historically given the player control over "crafting" their own experience.  As long as they keep the custom menu options "current" with new additions to the game, I really don't care what  they put in or leave out of their standards.  I'd just as soon see them go the way of the dodo since they continue to cause a lot of discontent among players and a lot of unnecessary pressure on HL.

[Renn]

3 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

As long as they keep the custom menu options "current" with new additions to the game

Which is currently not the case, as Tales are not available as a separate custom setting. Nor is Glimmer Fog, also a recent addition.