Game Balance

[TLDFAN]

I just wanted to mention some thoughts on Balance. Right now the design has 3 difficulty levels and schools of thought. By far I favor Voyager most, because survival is much more reasonable. Pilgrim has an excess of supplies and materials, as well as a reduced need for any of the resources, your food, water, heat intakes all need to be much less to keep you going and keep you from condition losses.

I continue to remain puzzled by the apparent double quickening of food need when freezing only found in Voyager and not in Stalker. Also worth mentioning the ridiculous calorie need Stalker having you consume essentially 6lbs of meat per day while still sometimes being hungry. Is this really the best way?

All in all the game at all levels presents challenges and some extreme ones. In playing Pilgrim you have the ability to carry more resources faster than in both other difficulty levels. I think adopting a selectable difficulty which works out as a difficulty multiplier is probably the way to go if the game is going to be score based.

Meat also deteriorates at a ridiculously slow level in Pilgrim, so I can on an average day bring in 3-4 times caloric need, and then it will live in a file cabinet for the next month if I want and still be edible. Not only is wildlife pensive but the whole absence of any aggressive wolves makes the game a no-challenge cakewalk at that level.

Im more concerned with the high caloric needs and the unsustainability of survival in Stalker than on the other end of the spectrum but wow does it vary highly.

[Scyzara]

Im more concerned with the high caloric needs and the unsustainability of survival in Stalker than on the other end of the spectrum but wow does it vary highly.

Unsustainability?

I'm not really sure what you're talking about, to be honest. You can survive in Stalker mode for several hundreds of days without starvation/hibernation or using any other kind of food exploit. What exactly is unsustainable about that?^^

Shoot one bear and you've got enough food for at least 15 days of thorough exploration. The deer+wolf combo yields enough kcal to survive for about 4 days as well. Even better, scare or lure a wolf away from a deer corpse and you have free meat for 3 days without using a single bullet! Not even to mention fishing, snaring, cattails and canned food as supplemental kcal sources.

In all honesty, starvation is the very last of all my many worries while playing Stalker. And I've been completely out of canned food for at least 100 days now.^^

Also worth mentioning the ridiculous calorie need Stalker having you consume essentially 6lbs of meat per day while still sometimes being hungry. Is this really the best way?

I generally agree with you that it feels somehow strange that you have to eat several kg of meat or fish per day. But that's not really a problem of the amount of calories itself (various people pointed out in other threads how fast you burn calories under extreme conditions) but rather of the unrealistically low kcal/kg meat ratio ingame.

Just to give some examples: In real life, 1kg of raw venison has more than 1200kcal, ingame it's only 800kcal. Rabbit meat is even worse: 1100kcal/kg in RL, only 450kcal/kg ingame. The very same is true for salmon, whitefish, etc.

The reason for this is probably that the devs don't want you to carry around enough calories for a whole week without being encumbered, I guess. It's a balancing issue and there's probably not an easy solution for it, unfortunately.

[TLDFAN]

Im more concerned with the high caloric needs and the unsustainability of survival in Stalker than on the other end of the spectrum but wow does it vary highly.

Unsustainability?

I'm not really sure what you're talking about, to be honest. You can survive in Stalker mode for several hundreds of days without starvation/hibernation or using any other kind of food exploit. What exactly is unsustainable about that?^^

Shoot one bear and you've got enough food for at least 15 days of thorough exploration. The deer+wolf combo yields enough kcal to survive for about 4 days as well. Even better, scare or lure a wolf away from a deer corpse and you have free meat for 3 days without using a single bullet! Not even to mention fishing, snaring, cattails and canned food as supplemental kcal sources.

In all honesty, starvation is the very last of all my many worries while playing Stalker. And I've been completely out of canned food for at least 100 days now.^^

Also worth mentioning the ridiculous calorie need Stalker having you consume essentially 6lbs of meat per day while still sometimes being hungry. Is this really the best way?

I generally agree with you that it feels somehow strange that you have to eat several kg of meat or fish per day. But that's not really a problem of the amount of calories itself (various people pointed out in other threads how fast you burn calories under extreme conditions) but rather of the unrealistically low kcal/kg meat ratio ingame.

Just to give some examples: In real life, 1kg of raw venison has more than 1200kcal, ingame it's only 800kcal. Rabbit meat is even worse: 1100kcal/kg in RL, only 450kcal/kg ingame. The very same is true for salmon, whitefish, etc.

The reason for this is probably that the devs don't want you to carry around enough calories for a whole week without being encumbered, I guess. It's a balancing issue and there's probably not an easy solution for it, unfortunately.

You can survive stalker for 100s of days maybe, most players can't. The game is radically unbalanced between the designed difficulties. You can't carry too much food in Stalker as it is post patch without being encumbered anyway so that cant be a balance concern. Also you can endure for a week without dying due to starvation, which isn't going to happen anyway because there are all these animal carcasses everywhere because there are WOLVES EVERYWHERE.

Im talking about design unsustainability. They keep adding tremendous difficulty to Stalker and nerfing the difficulty with Pilgrim, we have 3 separate games here. Two of them make no sense at all. Food is quite possibly the easiest resource to get aside from foraging wood.

[Hotzn]

Im talking about design unsustainability. They keep adding tremendous difficulty to Stalker and nerfing the difficulty with Pilgrim, we have 3 separate games here. Two of them make no sense at all.

Could you specify what it is that you would like the devs to do exactly? Make Stalker easier so you can play and survive at that level? If so, I would be against it, because I like the challenge just the way it is. I wouldn't mind raising the difficulty level still higher for Stalker. For those who either do not enjoy a high difficulty or are not up to it, there are the other difficulty levels to play and enjoy.

[Scyzara]

You can survive stalker for 100s of days maybe, most players can't.

Most players (about 3/4) seem to be unable to survive for even 5 days, but I somehow doubt they die of starvation.

Presumably they can't avoid or survive wolf attacks, get frustrated and quit playing before they would get better at dealing with wolves.

I assume the V. 212 changes were at least influenced by community feedback. People claimed in numerous threads that they do not want to die solely because of wolf attacks but for other reasons (biting cold/exhaustion/starvation) as well. The latest changes are just what many people asked for:

Less predictable & less zombie-like wolf behavior? - we got it.

Fewer wolves that are harder to kill? - got it (numbers in Coastal Highway have decreased a bit in general and if you hunt them for some time the area gets almost depopulated)

The environment (hunger, cold and exhaustion) being more of a problem? - got it.

You needn't like these changes (I personally don't like all of them either^^), but many people asked for them.

The game is radically unbalanced between the designed difficulties.

I assume the huge difficulty gap between the modes is on purpose. It's better to have difficulty gaps than losing a lot of potential customers because they believe the game to be either too easy or too difficult in general. With a vast range of difficulties, everyone can pick the mode he or she enjoys most.

I haven't played voyageur since V.212 yet but if the patch brought it somewhere more in the middle between pilgrim and stalker difficulty, I'm happy about it. Always considered voyageur and stalker to be too close together.^^

[TLDFAN]

You can survive stalker for 100s of days maybe, most players can't.

Most players (about 3/4) seem to be unable to survive for even 5 days, but I somehow doubt they die of starvation.

Presumably they can't avoid or survive wolf attacks, get frustrated and quit playing before they would get better at dealing with wolves.

I assume the V. 212 changes were at least influenced by community feedback. People claimed in numerous threads that they do not want to die solely because of wolf attacks but for other reasons (biting cold/exhaustion/starvation) as well. The latest changes are just what many people asked for:

Less predictable & less zombie-like wolf behavior? - we got it.

Fewer wolves that are harder to kill? - got it (numbers in Coastal Highway have decreased a bit in general and if you hunt them for some time the area gets almost depopulated)

The environment (hunger, cold and exhaustion) being more of a problem? - got it.

You needn't like these changes (I personally don't like all of them either^^), but many people asked for them.

The game is radically unbalanced between the designed difficulties.

I assume the huge difficulty gap between the modes is on purpose. It's better to have difficulty gaps than losing a lot of potential customers because they believe the game to be either too easy or too difficult in general. With a vast range of difficulties, everyone can pick the mode he or she enjoys most.

I haven't played voyageur since V.212 yet but if the patch brought it somewhere more in the middle between pilgrim and stalker difficulty, I'm happy about it. Always considered voyageur and stalker to be too close together.^^

The environment continues to take a far back seat to wolf action. The amount of calories necessary in Stalker are a big drive to engage wolves at all when as they exist they should be avoided. Imba Imba imba.

Wet should be #1 killer. but it isn't even modeled. Followed closely by Cold, and then WET+ COLD. Wolves and running out of water/food at the end of a long run all secondary. Calorie need in Pilgrim makes no sense at all, you can literally live off meat supply for one day of meat gathering give you several days supply and this meat will last a very long time too. Only losing 1% per day condition once cooked.

Stalker on the other hand, you need 6lbs of meat a day to live. LOL imba imba imba.

[Hyssch]

For those who would like to see a "slider" to set difficulty at their preferred level for the game, Raphael mentioned that that's not likely gonna happen:

http://www.reddit.com/r/thelongdark/comments/2wkj2f/hey_im_raphael_founder_and_creative_director_at/

That's a long thread on Reddit, so here's direct link to that comment:

http://www.reddit.com/r/thelongdark/comments/2wkj2f/hey_im_raphael_founder_and_creative_director_at/corpqpb

Raphlife: "We're always tuning the game, so nothing is static and how it feels now is not how it will feel a month from now. I don't think we'll go for a "sliders" solution as I feel it's our job to provide an experience, not a toolbox for experiences. It's a balance between authoring something and creating the opportunity for players to bring their own creativity to the experience."

[elloco999]

Raphlife: "I feel it's our job to provide an experience, not a toolbox for experiences. It's a balance between authoring something and creating the opportunity for players to bring their own creativity to the experience."

So just a thought I'm going to throw out there:

Provide an experience in the Story mode and leave the Sandbox for the players to create their own experiences...

[Hyssch]

So just a thought I'm going to throw out there:

Provide an experience in the Story mode and leave the Sandbox for the players to create their own experiences...

+1

I sure hope they make it that way.

[elloco999]

So do I, or at least as an option (you can select preset difficulties like you can now but also chose your own settings). But I'm not holding my breath.

Because of the large number of settings in TLD it is very hard to tweak and balance everything. The last thing Hinterland needs is lots of people playing with their own settings reporting all sorts of bugs that only happen with specific settings... So it will probably never happen, but if it does it will be much closer to/ in/ after the final release.

[Ryan CM]

So do I, or at least as an option (you can select preset difficulties like you can now but also chose your own settings). But I'm not holding my breath.

Because of the large number of settings in TLD it is very hard to tweak and balance everything. The last thing Hinterland needs is lots of people playing with their own settings reporting all sorts of bugs that only happen with specific settings... So it will probably never happen, but if it does it will be much closer to/ in/ after the final release.

Yes, if more personalization is done, we would definitely want to be done very well and have the bugs sorted first as much as possible.

[jackattack]

I hope the sandboxes are released along with the full game, cos they are just too much fun to lose.

I do wish there were a couple more difficulty levels -- Explorer (?) as a setting between Pilgrim and Voyageur, and Deathwish (!) for folks who think Stalker is for children.

[Scyzara]

I hope the sandboxes are released along with the full game, cos they are just too much fun to lose.

I do wish there were a couple more difficulty levels -- Explorer (?) as a setting between Pilgrim and Voyageur, and Deathwish (!) for folks who think Stalker is for children.

I vote for the name "Traitor" (reference to the 9th circle in Dante's Inferno) as a nightmare-mode! Just kiddin'. ;p

[bethany]

I hope the sandboxes are released along with the full game, cos they are just too much fun to lose.

Sandbox won't go anywhere, don't worry

[AmericanSteel]

So do I, or at least as an option (you can select preset difficulties like you can now but also chose your own settings). But I'm not holding my breath.

Because of the large number of settings in TLD it is very hard to tweak and balance everything. The last thing Hinterland needs is lots of people playing with their own settings reporting all sorts of bugs that only happen with specific settings... So it will probably never happen, but if it does it will be much closer to/ in/ after the final release.

I do like the ability to tweak a sandbox mode, not unlike Project: Zomboid (where I can tweak anything from the environment to zeds to infection levels). I also agree that leaving that sort of capability out of the players hands at this stage of the game is in order.

I wish the devs would let the weight/kcal of meat be the actual value, leave the animal populations like you would find them. While a sole kill could let the survivor live for weeks, it should. However, if a player bags a kill and gets complacent... they die. Survival is about improving your lot, not sitting on your rump. This time between bagging game and needing to hunt again give the player the necessary time to improve their situation. Stocking up on wood and water is the easy thing to do. It also gives time to do other necessary operations that happen automatically right now. While I like the harvesting and repairing clothing, I think the situation with pelts is a huge time gift.

Here is a linkie for curing a small rabbit hide...

http://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/how- ... fzraw.aspx

This is an involved process. If we made this simple the player would need something to stretch the hide (which takes time to create, another time sink), the hide then has to hang (time sink) and then scraping (manual labor). Then add in this process for the other animal pelts and getting to the good gear is going to take a lot of time and effort. Instead of bagging a few animals, adding some gut and a few days of work at the bench.

I also think the decay rate of meat is to high. Let me put some ice from outside in the freezer (ice box ftw) and stash that meat away for months. When it starts to go south, cook it and stash it away again. Or let us replace freezing with smoking to make smoked meat or jerky. While I do think canning would be another good option, I do believe the requirements for canning are a bit stiff for this bush environment. Normally you fill your freezer in the good months so you can survive the lean ones. Now it becomes simply suv

That all said, I understand the is Alpha and the devs are trying to create a balanced product... which takes time and effort. I like what I have seen so far, not only game content but community/dev interaction. I am sure a lot more is coming