Need a reason to leave an area? How about the Darkwalker?

[GothSkunk]

So tonight I was just playing a regular old survival mode session, and I got to thinking... as lovely as the TFTFT stuff is to do, especially challenging, once it's finished, along with the collection of the Technical Backpack from Ash Canyon and the cargo plane from Timberwolf Mountain, there's really nothing more to do but to settle down in your region of choice and just... exist. If you're smart about how you use your tools and resources, you can stay for months in a single region without ever having to leave. And to me, that gets... well... stagnant. So I was thinking about ways that could force a player to leave a region. Then it hit me... the Darkwalker could.

 

So imagine, you're in a section of Great Bear and you've been there for about 30 days. Then you wake up one day and you notice that the sun hasn't risen as it was expected to. It's dark outside, like it is when you play on the 4DON event. You get a notification on your HUD: "You can't explain why, but you've just got a bad feeling..." The Darkwalker is now actively hunting you. To escape it, you have to leave the region. If the Darkwalker catches you, you die. But, if you manage to make it to a transition zone, the area starts out dark, but the further through the zone you go, the sun starts to become visible again as you escape the Darkwalker's influence. Once you make it to the next region, it's back to daylight as usual. The area you left remains a domain of the Darkwalker for a period of 60 days, but the Darkwalker can come after you again in your new zone -- and conversely, expand its own domain -- if you linger there for too long, too.

 

As an added bonus, when the corrupting influence of the Darkwalker leaves an area after 60 days, it could reveal some notes relative to the Darkwalker's lore, or leave behind some other corruption. Maybe any items you leave behind decay faster. Potable water left behind could become tainted and completely unsafe to drink. Stuff like that.

[Leeanda]

I like the idea of having a reason to leave the area,even for a short time .. I'm not really a fan of dark walker though and I have trouble seeing at night..

How about a huge blizzard ,like episode 3 or whiteout?    Makes it impossible to hunt there so you have to go elsewhere for food and supplies.

[J.W.P]

Please no Darkwalker i can not stand him

[GothSkunk]

 

14 minutes ago, Leeanda said:

I like the idea of having a reason to leave the area,even for a short time .. I'm not really a fan of dark walker though and I have trouble seeing at night..

How about a huge blizzard ,like episode 3 or whiteout?    Makes it impossible to hunt there so you have to go elsewhere for food and supplies.

Alternatively, could add a mode where, upon entering a new region, you get ONE spawn of wildlife for the entire region. Once the wildlife in the area die, they do not come back, unless you leave and are gone for a minimum period of time?

 

Would be a bit tricky to handle in areas with fish, but I think a system could be worked out.

[Leeanda]

2 minutes ago, GothSkunk said:

 

Alternatively, could add a mode where, upon entering a new region, you get ONE spawn of wildlife for the entire region. Once the wildlife in the area die, they do not come back, unless you leave and are gone for a minimum period of time?

 

Would be a bit tricky to handle in areas with fish, but I think a system could be worked out.

Well fish don't respawn during blizzards like everything else does so I think staying in a blizzard area would still be impossible because of the need for fuel..   you'd have to spend so much time gathering firewood you'd probably freeze to death before you could catch enough.. 

Not during a blizzard would be awkward to do if there were fish,unless they were the only thing to spawn ..  you'd have to either have a good supply of tools etc where you're going or have to drag a load with you..  

There's quite a few scenarios you could play..     

 Might have to try a little experiment soon..  something like dead world with blizzards on max, or respawn on minimum..🤔

[James Hickok]

33 minutes ago, GothSkunk said:

 

Alternatively, could add a mode where, upon entering a new region, you get ONE spawn of wildlife for the entire region. Once the wildlife in the area die, they do not come back, unless you leave and are gone for a minimum period of time?

 

Would be a bit tricky to handle in areas with fish, but I think a system could be worked out.

There is a similar system in place in game atm - Just crank up the difficulty and you will have reasons to leave the region. There is a preset in custom game - wildlife regeneration rate and wildlife regeneration time drops the more you play. With theese settings on and meters set to max you will run out of food in one region and have to go to another in order for the wildlife to respawn.   

[ManicManiac]

@GothSkunk
You know, I'd welcome this sort of thing as a Custom Settings option.
Not only just a Darkwalker "threat presence" option for custom survival, but also perhaps the same option for the Demon Bear, or even the Demon Wolves from 4DoN.

[LunarLime]

Yeah, no thanks.

I really just don't like the idea of forcing players to not use a playstyle, just because... Well, 'just because'... Especially if it's just sending the Darkwalker to claim your real estate, because I REALLY think that The Darkwalker should remain only in his own challenge, and NEVER show up anywhere outside of that, other than maybe an easter egg mention in some note somewhere.

Even if it's something other than Darkwalker, and it's more grounded. Like, say.... If you stay in a region too long, the temperature drops, even indoors, forcing you to move eventually. I still don't like the idea of just forcing players to move, just because some might not like the playstyle. Because, well there are some people that do like staying in one region almost all of the time. Heck, I think some people may have even made a challenge out of just staying on one region exclusively.

My personal though is if you feel the need to move to a new region, then.... Just do it! I play a nomadic playstyle pretty much any run, and the only incentive I need is that I find it more fun.

[bysinda]

3 hours ago, ManicManiac said:

@GothSkunk
You know, I'd welcome this sort of thing as a Custom Settings option.
Not only just a Darkwalker "threat presence" option for custom survival, but also perhaps the same option for the Demon Bear, or even the Demon Wolves from 4DoN.

Deamon who?? what???

[GothSkunk]

9 hours ago, James Hickok said:

There is a similar system in place in game atm - Just crank up the difficulty and you will have reasons to leave the region. There is a preset in custom game - wildlife regeneration rate and wildlife regeneration time drops the more you play. With theese settings on and meters set to max you will run out of food in one region and have to go to another in order for the wildlife to respawn.   

Indeed, I have noticed that in the custom settings. But what is not clear to me is whether or not wildlife will eventually start respawning again. By the in-game descriptions of those particular flags, it sounds like wildlife WILL NOT respawn, period. Once they're gone, they're gone. The problem with this is that as you move from one side of the Island to the other, eventually you just run out of food, and death becomes assured, rather than just inevitable.

 

3 hours ago, LunarLime said:

Yeah, no thanks.

I really just don't like the idea of forcing players to not use a playstyle, just because... Well, 'just because'... Especially if it's just sending the Darkwalker to claim your real estate, because I REALLY think that The Darkwalker should remain only in his own challenge, and NEVER show up anywhere outside of that, other than maybe an easter egg mention in some note somewhere.

Even if it's something other than Darkwalker, and it's more grounded. Like, say.... If you stay in a region too long, the temperature drops, even indoors, forcing you to move eventually. I still don't like the idea of just forcing players to move, just because some might not like the playstyle. Because, well there are some people that do like staying in one region almost all of the time. Heck, I think some people may have even made a challenge out of just staying on one region exclusively.

My personal though is if you feel the need to move to a new region, then.... Just do it! I play a nomadic playstyle pretty much any run, and the only incentive I need is that I find it more fun.

To each their own. Me personally, I like playing my survivor scenarios where there is always something on my "To-do" list that needs to be done. I'm not a fan of waking up day after day doing nothing but passing time, slowly going through my storage of meat or occasionally taking a day to re-stock my potable water supply. I would very much welcome circumstances in-game that force me to re-locate.

[ManicManiac]

@bysinda

1 hour ago, bysinda said:

Deamon who?? what???

The Demon Bear, from Wintermute (episode 2) and The Hunted Challenge (parts 1, 2, soon part 3).
It's a particularly nasty bear that seemingly cannot be killed by bullets or arrows... and seems only to be taken down with the Bear Spear.

Quote

The Old Bear was nicknamed the "Demon Bear" after a Hunting party of three members failed to kill it despite, allegedly, unloading their rifles into it, surviving the hunt.

And the Demon Wolves were from the old 4DoN Halloween events.

Edited August 29, 2023 by ManicManiac

[conanjaguar]

As @ManicManiac said, I think this would be best as a custom setting… and the Darkwalker might be a bit of a stretch.

I will say that progressive corruption of the world in survival games had always seemed like an interesting mechanic.

[bysinda]

1 minute ago, ManicManiac said:

@bysinda

The Demon Bear, from Wintermute (episode 2) and The Hunted (parts 1, 2, soon part 3).
It's a particularly nasty bear that seemingly cannot be killed by bullets or arrows... and seems only to be taken down with the Bear Spear.

 

Ah, thaaat, I remember him --__--

3 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

 

Jesus F*** Christ! 

[bysinda]

8 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

[Mistral]

The core problem of the game, even in the harder difficulties has always been that it gets easier the longer you play and everything gets maxed our circa day 50 or so. After that the challenge is merely to keep yourself motivated to keep playing. Reaching interloper day 1000 is no harder than reaching day 60, other than the grind and time it takes to get there. Something artificial like Darkwalker or "Demon wolves" or whatever ain't the answer to that IMO, the actual mechanics have needed overhaul for longest time.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Mistral