Part of the solution to the late game.

[RegentRelic]

My goal was to create a system that will keep difficulty scaling into the late game and to make getting The Will To Live more then a test of patience. While also, not disrupting the superb new player experience.  My philosophy for the difficulties was that stalker is the base difficulty; the main difficulty if you will. I view voyager as stalker but, easier and interloper as being a barren world where the slow drain of the cold is the biggest threat. The most pure Long Dark experience you could say. No matter what the difficulty, you should have to play the core fantasy of being the haggard of Frau Holle's detrect and wrath. So, I made the late game a similar difficulty. Let's see what else. Oh yes some some clarification. Everything occurs on the day that it starts, but not on the day it ends. When wild life spawn chances change all of that animal are removed form every region except the one you in and then act as though you haven't visited that region yet. 

Original The long dark Late game fix Draft no.1.xlsx

A case against humanty Editable.xlsx

 

Pardon the barely readable screen shot.

The Late Game cycle. As you "can see" on day one hundred and ten the late game begins. From this point the game will cycle  between a standard period where the game continues as normal and an increasingly long Event period every. The event's are global changes that temporally force you to play differently. More difficult events have a lower chance of occurring and last for a shorter amount of time. Each time an event is rolled the chance of rolling it again decreases while the number of days it lasts for increases. For example: Stormy Weather could have a 10% chance of happening and last for 10-12 days. After it's rolled it would change to 15% (use quick sort to find the new values of the other items. I'm no mathematician though, so I might be miss remembering my time in that plutonian hall O, gregarious house) and last for 10-14 days. Then things would be normal for the rest of the "month", 20~30 days. Then at the end all the event's will play starting as far out as they can so, that they all end on the morning of the five hundredth day.

 

Some possible events are...                                                                                  Name; what it does. what it achieves. Early warning signs to ensure fairness. Possible up sides.

Long dark; Endless night. Forces you to get comfortable working at night. Doesn't need a warning sign.

Cold front; drops the global temperature by 20°. Invalidating even your double bear skin coats. Again I don't think it needs a warning sign.

Stormy weather; Causes nearly constant blizzards. This is the one big one that you need to be prepared for. There could be a massive murder of "weather crows" that fly over head. As an upside a ton of beach combing loot could wash up. Maybe even, to keep more active players from getting board most of the loot could wash away when the event ends.

Rabies; Some wolves will be hyper aggressive and have a chance to give you rabies, a new affliction that is a lethal version of Infection. Makes you scared of wolves again. Some of the wolves could die and when you try to harvest them instead of saying "wolf", it could say "tainted wolf" or something to that effect. There could also be a clearly visible indicator on the infected wolves, who would of course, all die after a few days, ending the event. 

Electro magnetic storm; Glimmer fog in the day, Arora in the night. Maybe even aroura blizzards! This would just be cool and an opportunity to reliably do some aurora stuff.

And hunts. Hunts are event's that can happen during the standard period where animals will show up to give you something to react to.

Both Wolves; A pack of wolves will hound you across multiple regions, bark when they get close. You should be able to keep a head of them if you keep moving but, you shouldn't be able to get comfortable with the pack on your tail. The goal is to recreate those time back in silent hunter where a pack of wolves would start barking and then run halfway across the map to get ya. Yes, I know that's the same feeling timber wolves are supposed to create, but they feel so, limited by the fact they aren't free rooming. As for warning signs I think the coolest one would be if the hunting pack was made up of wolves from around the region so, you could see them going of their normal patrol somewhere to meet up.

Bears; Similar to the wolves except they stick to the region they started hunting you in. Is it a chance for players who like to stay put to get some hide or a reason to pivot to doing something somewhere else? Both! There could be aloud roar when they start hunting.

Moose; A moose has decided your base is his new stomping grounds now! This version of the game encourages stock pilling a large amount of supplies in one place. And now we keep it! It's funnier if there's no warning.

The Old Bear; He's just a bear who's after you except instead of dying he will just run away. Maybe he could become a permeant feature of the region he spawns in, wandering around instead of hunting you. Either way he would act an ammo drain with no reward except being rid of him. I can see a lot of emergent story opportunities if he spawns in a region that isn't your main base, but is one you frequent. His warning could be a loud roar, distinct from the regular bears of course.                                       

Ghost Stage; you can kill him for deer bits or you can follow him to a supply a cache similar to the signal to void ones where you can't open it until the requirement has been fulfilled. In this case the stage bein' alive, or maybe to a location that you've never been to. Oh, hinterland could make it where the Ghost Stage can only appear if you have telemetry data turned on.

Rabbit; a single rabbit spawns next to you when you wake up next. Needs an extremely low chance of happening since if it happens more then ones per player it will just fill dumb.

Fish; The next bass you catch will be the Big Bass. Might tempt people into fishing. You will know you go this one when you don't get anything else.

 

Et al

"These mechanics would encourage players to stockpile everything one place". T'is a valid concern but, I think that that the fact you would need to stock pile supplies gives each moment more meaning.

"Waiting out a thirty day blizzard sounds really boring". As long as you know your going to make it through it it will be incredibly boring, which why varying the big storms length I so, important. This is a big problem though, players will inevitably become very comfortable and then they will be stuck just waiting it out. Something that would be a humorous non-answer would be to make the books readable. Have them be some of the books that the game makes allusions to: Call of The Wild, To Build a Fire and Paradise Lost are all public domain.

"I you put players on a timer they won't be able to do everything they want" listen doll if you don't want to make strategic decisions on how to spend your time, to always be weighing the risk vs reward of every possible action, I don't know how you get though life let alone why you play survival games.

Edited April 11, 2023 by RegentRelic