Stalkermode/Balancing

[MueckE]

Hi guys,

i thought a little bit about the game and made a wishlist. Actually it is more a concept than a list.

Before i start, it contains only balancing/tweaking of the things that already are in the game because i think

it is much easier to do this than adding completely new stuff.

Second: These suggestions are for the STALKERMODE.I never played voyager and only once pilgrim after the update.

The basic idea behind this balancing is to make stalkermode a more challenging survivalexperience.

Right now it is pretty easy despite the annoying wolfes. The real enemy in a survival situation is nature, the cold, finding food and water - and not the animals. At the moment, stalkermode is the opposite. Easy accessable, almost infinite food and water, shelter, but crazy predators --- and i thought there are no zombies in that game

I decided to turn it around to actually make it harder and give the player more responsibility for his actions.

In that spirit, please try to read the following in a positive way. I didnt commend every single point and whats the idea behind it and what the consequences of this would be, of course i thought about it but than i would have to write a book. Again, this is for stalkermode.

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-all can goods, will decay after the first 5 days

-Food can be placed outside in the snow

-> it will freeze, so you have to warm it up beforeyou can eat it

-> frozen food does not decay

-> depending on where you place it, there is a chance that the food gets eaten by animals (ground, wildlife paths)

-plants respawn every month and can be found in more places

Rifle:

-there is only one rifle in the game

-the rifle will spawn inside a random building in the area you start

-the rifle always spawns betwenn 5% and 20% condition

(so depending on how much ammo you find, you will have to repair

it on the long run, also you really have to think about how and when you gonna use it)

Firewood:

-add a "condition" to firewood. Fresh wood lowers the chance of making a fire by 40%. Old wood (below 50%)

gives you the same chance of making a fire like it is now.

(condition is just a placeholder to make it easier for the devs and doesnt actually mean "condition")

-> Fresh-wood becomes Old-wood after 3 days in a warm (above 0C) and dry place (carrying under a coat has

the same effect)

-reclaimed wood is always "old-wood"

-you only can forage 5 pieces of "fresh-wood" within 24 hours.

Loot:

-Cut the amount of Loot and make a maximum of how often you can find one item. It makes no sense

having 6 hatchets or 6 sewing kits. So either there is only 1 or randomly maybe 2 to find in 1 game.

(canopener, sewing kit, prybar, stormlantern .....)

-cut the amount of all matches

->there will always be at least 1 magnifying lens and 1 firestriker in a game

(untill there are ways to actually make your own fire with a crafted drillbow or just sticks or whatever)

-finding lanternfuel, jerrican, accellerant is extremely rare

(maybe the maximum amount of refilling a stormlantern - you still can chose if you want to use it as accellerant)

-> torches now need a cattail and no kerosine

-when you search a corpse, there is a high chance

to get clothes, but a lower chance to find something else

Foodpoisoning:

-chance of foodpoisoning has to be higher (like it was already)

-> now you can use plants and dont rely on antibiotics

-if you eat meat from an animalcarcasses you have found, there is a high chance of foodpoisoning

(because you dont know what caused its death)

-drinking a craftet tea from wild plants will lower the chance of foodpoisoning by 50% for the next two days

(including raw-meat, carcasses and also cooked meat in low condition)

- plants not only can cure, they can prevent you from becoming sick

- you can eat all plants, but some of them have a chance of 80% to poison you

Snare:

-If you catch an animal with a snare, the snare cant be used again (still can be harvested)

-after 24h, a placed snare will decay if there is a heavy wind or blizzard.

-The amount of snares that are placed on one spot does not increase the chance of catching more than one rabbit anymore!

> so if you want to catch more than one, you have to put each snare far away from each other.

-if an animal got caught with a snare, there is a chance of 80% that it will disappear

after the second day. So you have two days to get it or it will be most likely be gone (eaten by a wolf )

Fishing:

-you need to have bait for fishing (guts, meat ...)

-fishing without bait only gives a 10% chance of catching a fish

Hunting:

-depending on the wind, you can get closer to all animals

-if you go against the wind, walking, you can get very close to all animals (from behind)

-if you crouch to an animal from behind with the wind against you, you can actually get so close to touch it

-on the opposite, you will be noticed from far away with the wind in your back (like it is now)

or if you make a noise (now a deer for example doesnt care about that, if you come close it runs)

Wolfes:

-Wolfes behave basicly like in Pilgrimmode. (If they see or smell you they will run away)

*Exceptions:

-There is a 15% chance a wolf will act like now in stalkermode (rabies)

-If you come close to a wolf that is eating he either will attack you (if he has just started eating)

or he will run away if he already has eaten alot and you scare him off with a gunshot/flare.

If this wolf attacks you, he wont kill you because he just wants you to leave. (-40% condition + 70% chance of bloodloss)

-If your condition is below 50% and you have food with you, the wolfes will act like they do now in stalkermode.

(except eatable plants)

-If your condition is below 50% and you are injured, or poisoned, or have a bloodloss, the wolfes will act

like they do now in stalkermode.

-If your condition is above 50% and you are injured, or poisoned, or have a bloodloss, or you have food with you, the wolfes will follow you from distance for a period of time but wont attack.

(only if in that period of time your condition gets below 50%)

-wolfs dont bark anymore, they howl

-if a wolf is charging you, he doesnt bark, howl or growl

( sneaky attacks - you didnt see it coming )

Clothing:

-crafted clothes from animals dont get damaged in any kind of weather (you still will freeze)

-if you fall of a rock or another higher level you will be injured (sprained ankle), you lose condition

and your clothes get damaged (like they do in a wolfattack)

-crafted clothes from animals can be repaired with normal cloth if it is still above 50% condition

-crafted clothes from animals below 50% condition need half of the material to repair what was needed

to craft it in the first place (2 wolfpelt instead of 4, 2 rabbits instead of 4, 1 bear instead of 2)

-all types of timeconsuming activities increase the rate of decay of your clothes

(foraging wood, working on workbench, harvesting ...)

Blizzard:

-a blizzard should be more rare but if there is a blizzard it is really dangerous

-no metter what cloths you wear, in a blizzard you will freeze in no time and your condition

will drop so fast, that you will die in less than 2 hours (with perfect clothes on - naked its much faster)

-if there is a blizzard, it will last between two and three days

-after a blizzard, the chance of finding animalcarcasses is higher as normal

Fire:

-all animals will avoid coming close to fire!

-> if you have a campfire, no animal will come close to you. Even if you are below 50% condition with bloodloss

a wolf with rabies wouldnt attack you

-wind doesnt blow out a torch or a campfire (still the same to get it burning but once it burns, it wont

turn off so quickly)

-> only really heavy wind and blizzards will kill the fire.

-when a campfire has burned out, the protection from predators still lasts for 2 more hours

(because a real fireplace is still glowing and produces smoke)

-when you sleep outside without a campfire, food on you, condition above 50% (see wolfes) and are not in

a typical bear or wolfareas, you wont get attacked. (so if you camp open on mystery lake

there is a high risk getting attacked, because there are always 3 wolfes on or near the lake. But if you camp for example near the lone cabin behind clearcut, you shouldnt fear an attack because the next wolfes are at clearcut or unnamed pond.)

-shorter days

this idea comes from the user "Cosmoline":

daylight from 10am to 4pm

Sleeping:

-If your condition is below 30%, you will need to rest for 22h to heal up to 100%

(you still need to pause for drinking and eating - just doubled the time you need now)

-If you sleep more than 30h within a period of 72h, your maximum condition will drop by 20% every following

24h down to 40% maximum condition you can have. To restore your full 100% you have to be awake for 16h and spend at least 6h from that time outside. (what can be pretty dangerous with all the changes above)

-> no hibernation anymore, no stupid sleep-drink-eat-grinding anymore

-> get your ass up! its survivaltime!

[bethany]

Lots of interesting ideas here to potentially consider. Thanks so much for taking the time to write this!

[toebar]

some good ideas, and some I'm not so sure of..

If they add bait to the fishing, I would say it would be fair that fishing with no bait means 0% chance of catching fish---It might be an option to craft/find a lure of some kind, which would not need to be baited to catch fish.

The firewood suggestion just makes things a bit too complicated I think.. Realistically you can find dry wood just fine in most places.

I'm happy with the plants not respawning.. if you went a picked an area clean, new stuff isn't going to grow in the winter.

Most of your other suggestions are based on reality, but your fix for hibernation seems arbitrary and illogical. It doesnt make sense to just take 20% health off for excess sleeping.. a better fix would find a way to ensure the player has to get out and do things to survive, rather than threaten them with a magical health loss.

[MueckE]

thanks for the reply,

yes a lot of things are unrealistic, but that was not the main goal of the idea because for that, you would

have to add new mechanics, items and so on to the game. I wanted to use everything that is in the game.

I want to force the player to go outside and make survival a daily task. Everything has its advantage and disadvantage

so i had to think of balancing stuff.

For example the respawning plants. You are basicly right that this is unrealisitic but you have to see that in

this concept plants are much more important. If you dont find antibiotics anymore (or only a few) and have used

the one plant that does the same and at the same time this plant doesnt respawn, you can say right from the start

that it is not posiible to survive more than .... weeks (because poisoning is a daily thread and the plants doesnt last

that long) -> After a while people would complain about that (like it once was with the decay rate of matches and so on)

The same goes with getting calories. If most of the time animals will run from you, can you imagine how hard it actually

is to hunt and how dangerous it is with all the things above? Than it would be nice to have at least the opportunity

to bearly survive for a short period of time eating plants (what comes with a lot of disadvanteges again .. )

There are a few other things i added to balance the danger beeing outside and survive in general. For example

the fireprotection from animals or save places to sleep or frozen food doesnt decay and so on. Thats why it is called

balancing

What i mean is, the player should be forced to make decisions and not beeing forced beeing limited.

If you know something more realistic, that is already in the game and does the same like plants (in that concept) ....

No other item/mechanic came to my mind that would fulfill that.

Not only is the player forced to make his own decisions, in addition you just dont find something that is

only "good" and the one and only thing you have to do to surive. Everything you can get and do has its

goods, and lots of bads in addition - what do you chose?

(in that concept you cant "chose" the save, perfect thing because it simply doesnt exist anymore)

Why is that to complicated with the firewood?

progamming-wise you could just say: cedar and fir have a condition that drops down by 17% every day for

3 days except they are outside or in the snow. So how is that complicated compared to most other suggestions here in the forum?

The hibernation problem is a long time problem and for now, without adding new things, this

seems like a working solution (not the best maybe). Remeber that it basicly means that if you

hibernate you will have it much more harder to survive than it already is. So the player always wants

to be healthy and well fed because this leads to a better chance of survival. Low condition on the other hand

makes everything much harder "almost" impossible to survive. (some guys will find away to abuse that too in

some way but basicly it gets much harder to abuse and exploit things)

[toebar]

I think you've put a lot of thought into making the game better; discussing ideas like this often refines them, and often stimulates other ideas as well

I'm wondering if the need for respawning plants will be less as the world gets bigger. Bigger world = more resources overall... Having respawning resources might discourage exploration of the entire world? Ultimately, this boils down to the question of how long are we meant to survive? Indefinitely? Is that desirable? Is that fun? (I don't know the answer!! )

For firewood-- I don't really see the need to differentiate between 'fresh wood' and 'old wood'. Mostly I don't think it adds to the gameplay. If I was harvesting firewood, I'd be looking for dry wood to begin with, so keeping it warm for three days isn't going to change the quality of it.

The hibernation problem... I think the devs need to come up with something to address this, I'm just not convinced that a straight up health penalty is the right way. People have discussed a Morale/Mental Health meter before. I've been sketptical of it, but now I wonder if this could be utilized to discourage hibernation. E.g. it would make sense that sleeping all day would not be good for your morale/sanity-- keeping yourself occupied and active is a key part of survival. Just an idea

[MueckE]

yes, the respawning plants is only because of the small ingame-world. But in the real world, as soon all recources

are gone you would move on or in a survival situation you would move on anyway and dont make a camp

The firewood "condition" is for the an increased value of reclaimed wood and for a big nerf on

cedar and fir. Lets say you have to quickly make a fire (in my concept this will happen much more than it is already)

than you have to use either the very important reclaimed wood (needed for crafting and other things) or you

did well before and have a stockpile of dry cedar or you have to forage wood and have now the high risk of

failing making a fire. Maybe you need to cook a tea, boil water or whatever or you will die but now you have to deal with

the problem making a fire .... this is what i wanted. There are alot of possibillities how this situation can be and end.

Now it is just to easy. If you want to make a fire in the current version you just make a fire, there is no pros and cons, only pros. And to even make it harder, i added the limit of 5 pieces per day to forage so you need much more time and it is way more dangerous to get a stockpile of wood at your camp to rely on. If you want to have a lot of wood at your camp, ready to burn for you, you really have to do something for it.

I thought that conditiondoenst mean only physical condition. If you sleep a month, only interrupted by eating and drinking

not only your mental ability, but also your physical condition will drop drasticly.

And here you have the same rule as it is in the other suggestions. I think it is still possible to hibernate but

here it just wouldnt make sense. If your maximum condition only is 40% you would have to invest much more time

for hour-grinding and after a few days you will have to go outside, what is a pain in the ass with 40% condition ... and so on. So the idea is, not making something impossible but give everything pros and cons.

For a short time it is absolutly nice to stay at home, doing nothing, only eating, drinking and sleeping and all that without any dangers ... but in the long run your health will drop and you will become sick - mavbe even die earlier.

If you guys have more or other ideas how to change the balancing to have these results without adding

something, let mw know.

[Scyzara]

Well, every coin has two sides, unfortunately. I personally doubt that obvious solutions without any kind of downsides even exist.

I like many of your approaches to avoid exploiting the current game mechanics and I totally agree that solutions for these issues (esp. starvation/hibernation) would make the game much better overall.

I'm just a bit afraid that some of your suggestions might alter the game mechanics so radically that Stalker would feel like a completely different game. I don't want to call this a bad thing necessarily, but it's an aspect one has to consider.

It's obvious that you have put a lot of thought into your suggestions - the various single changes seem to create a new kind of overall balance when put together. Which is really an accomplishment in my opinion, most suggestions aim at making the game either easier or harder, but not equally difficult yet different.

The problem is that this whole new overall balance makes it very difficult to pick out one certain suggestion and discuss it solely. Just to give an example: I generally agree to toebar that plants regrowing in winter feel rather weird and are not realistic for sure. The same is true for food decaying after five days. But at the same time I understand that these two changes are kind of necessary to "encourage" the player to go outside which is again necessary to endanger him/her to be killed by a monster-blizzard or surprised by a sudden nightfall.

To cut a long story short:

If a fourth mode (like the "Pilgrim with much more dangerous environment = realistic mode") ever was to be added, I would love to see many of your suggestions (more dangerous and longer lasting blizzards, less aggressive wolves, campfires offering security, shorter days, one-time snares, increased risk of food poisoning and enhanced importance of herbal medicine) integrated. But as it stands, the devs seem to be rather happy with the current three modes and I don't believe that many players would be happy to have Stalker mode changed that radically.

However, imo some of your "tinier" suggestions like baits for fishing, longer regeneration periods to recover condition or sneaking towards hunting prey would be great additions in all three current modes. I would be very happy to see them included.

[toebar]

If you guys have more or other ideas how to change the balancing to have these results without adding

something, let mw know.

Simple solution to excess sleeping-- You can only sleep when fatigue is > X% (10, 20, 30?)... and potentially when you are injured.

2 benefits to this solution are that it is very simple, and rooted in reality. I.e. in RL I can't fall asleep unless I'm tired either.