There are no stupid questions

[xanna]

I consider myself an experienced player of TLD and I feel pretty skilled with even the tiniest details of the game, but there's still some embarrassingly basic things I just don't get. I started this topic as a safe no-shame place to post embarrassing TLD questions.

Please keep replies supportive, to the point and never assume stupidity or lack of experience in others.

We can all have blind spots!

[xanna]

I'll start!

Can someone explain to me what Darkwalker is?

Not the lore or whatever, just what the mechanics of the challenge are.

The instructions on the challenge are really frustratingly sparse and don't help me understand:

 

When I loaded it up there was a clock counting down for 15 minutes and I totally misunderstood what that meant and felt stupid.

Without spoilers, can someone give me the basics?

[mfuegemann]

Your goal is to find the green campfires and the diary pages there. There is one campfire in each main region, save Blackrock, Ash Canyon and the Far Territories.
Beside the campfires, You will find good loot and spray cans. The darkwalker will start moving towards You after a grace period, getting faster with every page You collect. 
With the spray can You can create a safe zone for You to rest, set a lure that attracts the darkwalker instead of following You, and once in a run delay the poison fog in one region. 
Once You enter a region the fog timer begins and after approx. 30 real-time minutes converts it to a deadly place. Transition zones and mines/caves are assigned to a main region share their timer. This should be considered for regions, You want to cross twice.
The maps are revealed and show the location of the camp fires and Your position. I realized that on my third try...
Oh, and after a while predators are waking up too.

Once You got the hang of it, the Darkwalker Challange is quite fun and very thrilling. Just prepare to start several tries. 

[xanna]

@mfuegemann Thank you very much ♥️ This is much clearer.

The fog is confusing because the whole challenge looks like it's in green fog. But I assume that that's not the scary fog?
Is the fog a specific area (like the poison clouds in Blackrock Mine)? Or does it cover the whole region like weather (like the glimmer fog in TFTFT)?
Does the fog affect indoors like mines, caves, buildings?
I assume the Darkwalker can get me inside buildings, too?
 

13 minutes ago, mfuegemann said:

The maps are revealed and show the location of the camp fires and Your position. I realized that on my third try.

On my try, it wasn't even clear to me that the green fires were already placed on the map or whether I was supposed to set them myself somehow! (Though I figured that out since, from hanging around in TLD community spaces.)

[mfuegemann]

The fog is a regionwide effect and increases over time, making it harder to see. You are not safe in houses or caves. After the fog meter reaches zero, You will lose health rapidly, so keep in mind that the transition zones and caves count to a main region and become hostile with them. The timers are real-time, not ingame time, though. So it is possible to sleep for some hours, even with only a few minutes left on the timer.

And the darkwalker can get You inside a building or cave too.

[xanna]

Thank you @mfuegemann!

[mfuegemann]

Oh, and make sure You take the notes with You from the campfire. You do not want to go back...
Place a lure often, as the darkwalker is going for the lure first, ignoring You even if he is very close.
A glyph is lasting for 5 ingame hours, and all spray cans are spraying glyphs, not only the ones from a campfire.

Good luck!

Edited February 6 by mfuegemann

[Smellyfries]

When I first joined the Forum, my first dumb question was asking how snares work on the Milton Mailbag back when they were still doing those. Thankfully, someone realized that I was new, and recommended that I go to different parts of the forums and ask the community for help rather than the devs lol. 

I was trying to research snares so I could get the snare feat.

If anyone is wondering, snares are quite simple:

When placed down in an area where rabbits can spawn, they have a chance of doing three things when you are not present in the area:

1. Catch a rabbit

2. Break (which I believe can also occur if there is bad weather)

3. or not catch anything, and remain intact.

I've found that they don't very often break, and you get the reclaimed wood back if they do.

Even after grinding to get the feat, I've never properly used it lol, so I have no idea how it works besides the description of "snares being 100% more efficiency." 

Hope this helps if anyone's curious.