Why Stalker mode doesn't work at the moment...

[Vortex]

I am currently on day 160+ on my Voyager difficulty, so I thought I would try my luck in Stalker mode, now that I feel comfortable with my survival knowledge.

Stalker mode first started out fantastic - I was tested a few times, caught hypothermia thrice and really had to scavenge and think twice about where I was going and what I was doing. Then after about 5 days of prepping...

... enter the rifle and then the wolves.

There are wolves everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Not just one, some are in packs of three. The thing is... they aren't actually causing a challenge anymore that I have managed to find three rifles and a very comfortable amount of ammo... and I rarely ever shoot with the thing. The only time that rifle goes off is if I am STARVING (Hasn't happened yet in Stalker - I'm actually stockpiling cans and dried foods comfortably) or if my evasion attempts are in vain and the Wolf is mere inches away from me.

My Hunting Bow is ready to go as well - just need a handful of arrows and I won't have any difficulty killing even more wolves. :?

It got to the point where I didn't even want to harvest the carcasses because I have such an excess amount of meat, pelt and guts that I do not know what to do with them. Honestly, I killed a wolf and I wanted nothing to do with it. In Voyager I wouldn't waste a scrap!

It appears that by multiplying the Wolf count numbers and also increasing the respawn rate - the game has become inversely *easier* than in Voyager mode... and also, a bit irritating as well. I am now dodging wolves not because they pose a threat, but because I have more components than I know what to do with...

I had much more fun in Voyager because there were less items to make do. (In terms of meats, pelts and guts.)

What I think *may* work better for Stalker mode is the following;

* Keep wolf counts and respawn rates the same as Voyager. I don't think we need more wolves - they just need to do what they do 'better'.

* Increase line of sight radius for wolves.

* Increase damage that the wolves do. (By a lot!)

* Increase rates of infection and bleeding. (By a lot!)

* Clothing tears everytime you fight an animal in melee. Amount that gets torn should be increased.

* Only a perfect bullseye to the head should score an instant kill with the rifle. Average bullet spend should be 2 per wolf.

* Decrease amount of harvestable meat and make what is available at a lower degradation percentage.

* Increase time needed to cure items. Double it. Triple it even.

* Increase decay rate on rifles. Lower percentage rifles should run the risk of jamming with firing and reloading.

* Less bullets available. I'm at Mystery Lake, only 10 days in and have THREE high condition rifles and 25+ rounds already.

... maybe throw in a couple more Bears instead for Stalker? They're bloody terrifying.

[thinair]

stalker is only some what challenging first few days... after that its pretty easy.

by the way, as far as rifles... i know ml locations for rifles, but in my current run of staying only in ml, and swept everything... only found one... its all about spawns. However, i did find 1 good and 1 broken arrow and at least 10 maple which is 30 arrows... and theres are some areas in ml were i might find some more.

[Scyzara]

The reasons why Stalker mode doesn't "work" (=stay difficult after the first few days) atm are pretty numerous and complex in my opinion. I agree that the current animal overabundance is certainly one of the most important key factors, but there's more to it.

First of all, I agree with Vortex that Stalker definitely needs less animals. I personally would also favor much longer respawn timers (25d for deer, 12d for wolves, 100d for bears) and the ability for deer to outrun wolves 90% of the time.

The latter is meant to prevent wolves from killing every single deer on the maps as soon as they spawn. A nice side-effect would be less wolf-deer-combos, thus less meat.

Don't increase the amount of bears please, they're nothing but free meat storages for experienced players. In my opinion, only one bear per map would be awesome. Maybe three of them in PV - I have to admit they somehow fit the landscape.^^

Secondly, animal AI needs some work. Shooting wolves and bears through campfires, luring wolves away from carcasses or using fire to steal meat shouldn't work as it does currently. Some suggestions how these issues might be adressed can be found in the infinite meat thread.

The next big thing is tool and ammunition scarcity.

I'm actually having the best time playing when I do self-imposed challenges like not to pick up any tool or weapon for the first few dozens of days. I really don't understand why there is such an overabundance of tools (mostly hatchet & knife) in Stalker.

Please give us only one of each tools, one rifle, maybe 15 bullets and another 15 arrowshafts (=5 birch saplings) per map, that's MORE than enough for an experienced player to survive hundreds of days. I want to be happy when I manage to find a hatchet, not think "Great, that's hatchet No. 10 this run ".

Further changes that could make Stalker more challenging:

A) The cold should be your enemy

- Give blizzards the potential to last between 24 and 48 hours occasionally

- Increase the time to cure pelts and guts (it should imo take much more time than the current 15 days to craft a full set of best-quality clothes).

- Decrease the average outdoor temperature over time (e.g. -3°C each 20 days survived) to compensate the better clothing that you're acquiring. The temperature drop could be capped at some limit (e.g. - 15°C after 100 days) and remain at that level afterwards. Even best-quality clothes shouldn't make it possible to completely ignore the current outside temperatures and weather patterns.

B) Fires & light

- Make matches much more scarce. The amount of firestarters and magnifying lenses is fine in my opinion, but the amount of matches could easily be reduced by 90%.

- Differentiate between torches (crafted, current burning times) and burning sticks from fires (much shorter duration & less light). Burning sticks should make it possible to carry a magni-lens fire into a house, but they shouldn't scare away animals or emit enough light to cross mines.

- Crafting at the workbench shouldn't be possible without any light source. Unless you want to spend precious kerosine for that, your crafting times should be limited to the hours of daylight.

C) Resource scarcity

- Drastically decrease the amount of scrap metal & cloth that can be acquired. Atm there's so much of both that they're almost unlimited resources. You can always repair everything and never have to make any choices how to use your resources. This isn't fun (at least not for me).

- Remove guts from snared rabbit corpses (no perpetuum mobile snares) and make rabbit populations much easier exhaustable. You shouldn't be able to survive for all eternity with only snaring rabbits.

D) Knowledge

- Crafting recipes are only learned if you find the related books. No crafting of e.g. deerskin pants for you unless you found a book about how to sew some pants. There shouldn't be more than two books per crafting recipe in the whole game (=randomly distrubuted among all maps). You should celebrate the find of these recipes, not think "wow, my 5th pant crafting book...".

E) Healing properties

- Decrease the amount of condition that can be regained per day. Severe wounds (e.g. from wolf attacks) shouldn't heal overnight but take a few days to mend instead. 25% condition gain per 12 hours slept (without starvation or thirst!) could be a starting point.

That's all that comes to my mind atm.

[Foxen]

All of these considerations bring us to only one Solution (for Sandbox Players...):

To match everyone's wishes, the Devs would have to change the whole Difficulty System from the three Ones we have to a Menu in what you can select all these things all by yourself (that was mentioned by a number of other Players several Times before!).

Every change in the System as it is now impacts every Player...if experienced or none experienced...doesn't matter and many Players seem to struggle with it allready by now.

But the game should be (and stay) playable for everyone.

And that (at least in my opinion) can only be done, if the Difficulty System in itself is being changed.

But that would (as I think) impact the Story Mode...or is it possible to have such kind of menu for Sandbox-only

and have independent (and none-changeable) Settings for the Story Mode?

Can't tell because I'm no programmer...my experiences in that are leftovers from the 80s...on several Commodore 'mashines' :lol:

[toebar]

All of these considerations bring us to only one Solution (for Sandbox Players...):

To match everyone's wishes, the Devs would have to change the whole Difficulty System from the three Ones we have to a Menu in what you can select all these things all by yourself (that was mentioned by a number of other Players several Times before!).

You're basically suggesting difficulty sliders, which have been discussed at length in various other threads. I'm not a fan of this solution, and I believe the developers said that it wouldn't happen. There's lots of better suggestions in Scyzara's post.

[Foxen]

How can you judge if something is 'better'?

For you it might be better...or for some other People...

But you have to remember that all this is not about some ten or twenty Players who decide for themselves

that they want 'their Game' as hard to play as even possible.

There are several Ideas/suggestions from a number of Players out here...but most of these Ideas fit only

for a few others...not for everyone.

And that's what I wrote:

To fit everyones wishes...

What can be better than selecting every aspect that makes the game 'harder' or 'easier' for yourself

and...by yourself?

And to not destroy the initially sense of this Game (Yep! The Story-Mode...), I asked if it's possible to make this

kind of 'Menu' only available/accessable for the Sandbox-Game.

But in the End (and just to fit everyones wishes!) that is and stays the only way

Everything else affects every Player...and therefor will definitally make someone complain about

anything...or just stop him/her from playing...or doing both

I'm only saying that if you want everyone to be happy (in terms of this Topic...), then that's the only way

to do it.

I'd never want to judge if anything said was better/worse...I'd say that some Things would fit better to

some Players...some wouldn't.

[toebar]

Fair enough, I should have included 'better imo'

Nonetheless, allowing the amount of customization that you suggest creates it's own problems.

ie WHAT all will be included-- everything cannot be customized--their are way too many variables. And think of the new crop of bugs that could result.

Ultimately, allowing excess customization takes the responsibility for creating a balanced experience away from the developer. From their comments on the topic it seems they don't want this, and I agree with their sentiment.

I think that 'Sandbox' is actually a poor name for the current sandbox--since many sandboxes do allow for more customization. It would better be called survival mode. IMO

P.S. there's no way to make EVERYONE happy--this is the internet

[ridankrad]

Every change in the System as it is now impacts every Player...if experienced or none experienced...doesn't matter and many Players seem to struggle with it allready by now.

But the game should be (and stay) playable for everyone.

I agree with everything Toebar wrote, but I wanted to respond to this part of what you wrote in particular. Remember that this thread is only about Stalker mode, so the changes being suggested would not necessarily impact every player, but rather just the ones choosing to play on Stalker. In fact, I would argue that those who aren't experienced would also struggle to play on the current version of Stalker, even without all of the suggestions in this thread.

The reasons why Stalker mode doesn't "work" (=stay difficult after the first few days) atm are pretty numerous and complex in my opinion. I agree that the current animal overabundance is certainly one of the most important key factors, but there's more to it.

First of all, I agree with Vortex that Stalker definitely needs less animals. I personally would also favor much longer respawn timers (25d for deer, 12d for wolves, 100d for bears) and the ability for deer to outrun wolves 90% of the time.

The latter is meant to prevent wolves from killing every single deer on the maps as soon as they spawn. A nice side-effect would be less wolf-deer-combos, thus less meat.

Don't increase the amount of bears please, they're nothing but free meat storages for experienced players. In my opinion, only one bear per map would be awesome. Maybe three of them in PV - I have to admit they somehow fit the landscape.^^

Just to add to your point about bears, I wouldn't mind seeing bears act more aggressive so the player is no longer able to kite them to a house to get an easy kill with the shoot and sleep strategy. I don't know if bears should be as aggressive as wolves, but certainly more than they are now (on Stalker mode only). Actually, I'd love to see it so bears were able to smash into a house itself if you antagonize them and flee inside, but I realize that's not realistic to expect.

Secondly, animal AI needs some work. Shooting wolves and bears through campfires, luring wolves away from carcasses or using fire to steal meat shouldn't work as it does currently. Some suggestions how these issues might be adressed can be found in the infinite meat thread.

In my opinion this is the biggest issue. As much as I love torches, the ability to infinitely create them with a fire makes food and wolves trivial right from the beginning of the game, because a player right at spawn need only locate 4-5 sticks, start a fire and then create a torch to have the rough equivalent of a flare. That said, I also don't think wolves (and even bears) should just ignore fire either.

The next big thing is tool and ammunition scarcity.

I'm actually having the best time playing when I do self-imposed challenges like not to pick up any tool or weapon for the first few dozens of days. I really don't understand why there is such an overabundance of tools (mostly hatchet & knife) in Stalker.

Please give us only one of each tools, one rifle, maybe 15 bullets and another 15 arrowshafts (=5 birch saplings) per map, that's MORE than enough for an experienced player to survive hundreds of days. I want to be happy when I manage to find a hatchet, not think "Great, that's hatchet No. 10 this run ".

Hahaha, you reminded me of my latest run where I had a table in my base that I dedicated to all of my tools. It ended up becoming my biggest challenge with the run in trying to play Tetris with the tools' layout to see if I could somehow fit everything on a single table (I couldn't).

E) Healing properties

- Decrease the amount of condition that can be regained per day. Severe wounds (e.g. from wolf attacks) shouldn't heal overnight but take a few days to mend instead. 25% condition gain per 12 hours slept (without starvation or thirst!) could be a starting point.

I completely agree. Even a mauling from a bear can be recovered from after a single good night's sleep.

I liked your other suggestions too, Scyzara (and yours too, Vortex), but those were the ones that jumped out at me.

[Wintermute]

Gentlemen,

It sounds as if you guys have a lot more time at your hands than the average player. I find it difficult to evade each and every wolf, I never found more than two rifles , I never had more than three of each tool on one map, and I never ever had more than 10 bullets.

(and trust me, I am a thorough scavenger) (Plus I am VERY frustrated with my clothing being permanently tattered from the idiotic wolves that lurk behind each and every corner and seem to be attracted rather than scared by my torches)

I do not know if you guys played Don't Starve, but there you have a difficulty setting for each and every mob / weather condition / boss / resource that you can play with before you launch a game. Before you convince Hinterland to make the game impossible for the average player you better ask for more knobs to turn on to adjust the difficulty to the setting that suits your playstyle the best ;-)

[ridankrad]

What difficulty are you playing on, Wintermute? I'm curious what your strategy is when it comes to torch usage. I've only ever had a wolf attack me while wielding a torch when I brandished the torch at it, which sometimes scares them away but more often than not antagonizes them further. But if I just hold the torch (and don't approach the wolf) it will only approach within 4-5 feet of me and then stop. I use torches as a way to prevent attack while I look for the nearest shelter. On top of that, if you use the torch to get the wolf to stop, start walking up a hill, and then time it so that you begin running down the hill just as the wolf begins to try to stalk you again, you can actually outrun the wolf and de-agro it. With torches now a renewable resource, I never use the rifle on wolves and reserve it solely for bears (although I will use the bow for wolves if I want to kill one for its resources).

I've played TLD for 263 hours according to Steam so I'm not sure if, by your standards, that means I have more time on my hands than the average player, but I thought I'd share my thoughts anyway.

By the way, I also have played Don't Starve so I'm familiar with what you're talking about about all the various settings you can tweak when starting a new game. But again, Hinterland has said it isn't interested in doing that and instead wants three distinct difficulty settings.

I don't think the suggestions here would make the Stalker mode impossible by any means. But as for the "average player" I think that Voyager is supposed to be intended for the "middle ground" style of play. If a player finds Stalker too difficult, I don't see why that player cannot simply play on Voyager or Pilgrim instead. Stalker is explicitly intended for advanced players, and these suggestions are specifically for Stalker mode.

[Vortex]

Gentlemen,

It sounds as if you guys have a lot more time at your hands than the average player. I find it difficult to evade each and every wolf, I never found more than two rifles , I never had more than three of each tool on one map, and I never ever had more than 10 bullets.

(and trust me, I am a thorough scavenger) (Plus I am VERY frustrated with my clothing being permanently tattered from the idiotic wolves that lurk behind each and every corner and seem to be attracted rather than scared by my torches)

I do not know if you guys played Don't Starve, but there you have a difficulty setting for each and every mob / weather condition / boss / resource that you can play with before you launch a game. Before you convince Hinterland to make the game impossible for the average player you better ask for more knobs to turn on to adjust the difficulty to the setting that suits your playstyle the best ;-)

Wintermute, this thread is in relation to Stalker mode - a mode that really isn't catered for the average player.

If everyone could play the hard mode, it would no longer be the hard mode.

What I am trying to get across is that the current hard mode is inverse in that there is too much food and material to harvest from the things that are meant to be hunting you down.

I will echo ridankrad's question and ask which difficulty mode you play, in relation to your experiences that you have described. Personally, I feel that the default Voyageur difficulty is the most 'balanced' of the three modes.

Pilgrim = A bit too easy. Even for an easy mode.

Voyageur = Balanced, but still needs some work.

Stalker = Inversed. If you're armed, you end up with more food and materials than you can keep up with.

[Wintermute]

Well, there you have it, forums at work, game at home and I mix up the names. I play Voyageur

You guys go ahead and mess around with the Stalker mode, then

[Drazon]

I picked up the game on Halloween sale and so far I've played it for 49 hours.

I haven't tried the easiest difficulty. Started with Voyager (if that is the middle) and loved it how I died in no time. After some trying and dying, my fourth character made it for 32 days. Didn't find rifle, didn't have bow in use (no arrows in use..).

Well, I started Stalker mode then. Started at Desolation point, but died pretty soon (I think around 10 days or so).

Another try - which is now ongoing - is somewhere up at 34 days. Started at Coastal Highway, collected some gear, went to Desolation point to craft arrow heads, returned and then moved myself to Mystery Lake. No rifle, but I have around 2-3 usable arrows on me.

And darn, it's getting boring.

Like it was stated on the first posts, there's too much wolves that are too easy to kill. Once I found out from keymapping that there's a shortcut for "dropping bait", I've survived better. It's a fine feature, but when combined with drop bait + back up with torch in your hand + let the wolf get the bait + shoot him with the bow... it's 33% 4kg of meat (I'm a lousy aimer), 33% of meat later on (when you stumble upon his frozen corpse and retrieve the precious arrow) and 100% survival. Whereas previously those wolves were something that could really get you killed, if you didn't have flare. (I didn't know, btw, that if you don't try to scare them off with the torch, they're more likely just trying to stare you to death)

I think bears have been fine as they are, so far, since I don't have experience with the rifle. Only reason I've made it so far is because I survived one bear attack and had a couple of lucky close-calls, where the bear was darn close to me but didn't instantly charge (perhaps no line-of-sight).

Also, for some reason, I've had very easy time with the weather in Stalker mode, whereas my previous Voyager game ended after I was trying to find my way out of Pleasant Valley and got hit by blizzards (+ food poisoning, 2 wolves and a bear, all in row.. if only I had not tried to scare that bear off for the 3rd that with a flare, maybe he wouldn't have come for me. Two times it worked, 3rd time he just insta-charged.)

So:

+1 for less wolves

+1 for less tools

+1 for crafting guides (but I think the game would need more craftable 'lower level' stuff, perhaps in the form of improved clothing, like using some animal skin to buff up your mittens or gloves by a notch, but at the same time they would make using weapons impossible. You'd have to unequip them every time before engaging.)

+1 for harder, colder climate (too much wind will make you want to stay inside, but just plain cold would force you to keep stopping for regular warm-ups on campfire. And, eventually, when you are out there, a blizzard - or just that nasty wind - would hit you and "it" would be on. The best experience in the game is when you survive, barely, from being lost in the storm.)

Other than this disappointment on the Stalker mode, the game is absolutely fantastic. Can't wait to have more areas to explore.

[Drazon]

Since this could lead to separate discussion I write a new post:

I wonder if wolves and hostile wild animals in general could be further done in such a way that when they start performing their action OR when they react to your actions, there would be a chain of pseudo-random rolls (contributing factors could depend partly on such secret factors [ie. players are not informed on these] like the gear or stamina or health of the player, and/or partly on weather [perhaps some weather conditions would drive beasts more active or passive than others]). Let me elaborate this in example:

A wolf spots the player, who is carrying a torch. The player drops a piece of raw meat as a bait and backs up. Now, there would be roll whether the wolf will be interest in the bait, or if he keeps his aggro on the player, ignoring the bait (but, optimally, returning for it after the player has lost his interest - but this is a secondary interest).

If the wolf takes the bait and player keeps retreating, all is fine (this is how it is now, I believe). But, if the player stops in certain radius - ie. doesn't leave the radius of the wolves 'area of interest' (ie. his perceptional range - 'private space'), the wolf could lose his interest on the bait and turn his attention on the player again ("what, you are still here? you got something on your mind? Grrrr").

Now, if the player notices this and decides to back up again, there would be another roll - with some contributing factors, for example like, was the meat good enough and big enough for him? Or did he get a taste of some soon-to-be-rotten meat and feels that there's much more where it came from?

If it comes to that point where it's a torch-holding player against a wolf, and the wolf makes the charge and the player waves the torch, there should be more possible outcomes than the fail/success: the wolf could back off, only to make a rapid charge just a second or two after. Or, the wolf would start to "circle strafe" the prey. Or, he could stay put or back off a bit, but only to start to follow the player a bit more far away. Perhaps even giving out some howlings, to call up his buddies who might be near.

I'm running out of exemplary ideas here, but I hope you got the point. I'd like to see the wolf versus player -encounters to be such that there would be as many possible variations as the devs could implement in to it, in reasonable invest of time and effort. You throw a flare? This old beast knows that trick already, he jumps aside, and is ready to go on you. You set up a campfire with accelerator the second you spot the incoming wolf? Well, this time he (or they) won't just stop at the certain range and stay put there when you wonder off, but they back of out of the radius of the lightsource and stay patient - they have the time - and if you move out of the center of the light, they'll be waiting, so better grab that torch and hope they are afraid of fire.

What I would like is that the encounters/fights could go as a succession of rolls which decide how the wolf reacts/fights - kind of like it's in the old pen and paper RPG's, where there's attack, dodge, counter-attack, slip on the mud, successive attack, once-in-a-life-time parry and a critical hit on the achilles tendon which makes the attacker (which ever it was..) retreat, and darn, you survived! Since, at the moment, it seems that there's only two outcomes, I feel like this area of the game should be expanded in such a way that there would be more variations, but the actual combat should be kept the same - that intense two-finger style spamming of the left mouse button like it was Track & Field again is both awesome and hysterical.

[xman1]

Current game, Stalker mode, day 32 and I still haven't found a rifle. Lots of bullets, no rifle.

If you found 3 rifles, sounds like you got spawn lucky!

[Nemesis]

I find Stalker plenty difficult. I've gone over 100 days only once. I've had games where I can't find a rifle in Mystery lake or Coastal Highway and it was a huge joy to finally find one in Pleasant Valley. I have died in myriad ways and some seemed capricious and very unsatisfying. Never ending storms, wolf packs springing out of thin air. Torches having no effect whatsoever. Scarcity of found food coupled with no animals to hunt. Bears that move faster than Cheetahs and of course bugs.

Making the game difficult for difficult's sake is not appealing to me. Otherwise why not have permanent storms, no animals and no tools at all. You log in and you die, happy? Finding stuff is most of the fun in the game. Exploring worthwhile areas is fun. Trudging through desolate areas in the hopes of finding a candy bar is not. The game needs more buildings and places to go to, not less. The more dangerous and remote areas should have higher rewards. I don't bother with large swaths of the map anymore because the rewards don't justify the risks of dying by weather and/or wolf or bear. The chances of dying from plain bad luck are just about right currently and making the odds worse by limiting your resources makes the game feel like dumb luck rather than skill.

I say have more places like DP, where the reward of getting your arrowheads justifies the risks of navigating the wolf infestation. CH is another good area in terms of risk/reward ratio. But also places like PV are great with the awesome farmhouse and the ability to "play it safe" for a portion of your run. Needless to day this is all "in my opinion".

[Drazon]

In my opinion the game gets certain variability each time when you are not able to find certain tool, so that you have to find some other way to survive in that game. This is the reason I would hope for more scarce availability of tools in Stalker mode. For example, if you don't have hatchet, you must rely on sticks and reclaimed wood. Or, you could set yourself up for the tript to DP to craft one.

But, when you are able to find everything or mostly everything in "no time" (let's say, 20d), it will make every game more the same.

Btw I think Desolation point has too much safe zones too near each other. I wondered to Pleasant Valley by chance, and had my most exciting time as the blizzards and weather seem to be more harsh there than elsewhere. Even had to burn my snares and hatchet to survive the night. Made it through, but forgot my sleeping bag to the wilderness.. I guess 50d will be my last achievement.

[Vortex]

Current game, Stalker mode, day 32 and I still haven't found a rifle. Lots of bullets, no rifle.

If you found 3 rifles, sounds like you got spawn lucky!

Find just one rifle and your game experience will change.

I specifically did mention that Stalker mode is fine until you're armed.

Of course it's hard when you aren't armed when there are packs of wolves loitering together.

The issue is when you can take those wolves down. Too much meat and materials.

[sierra 117]

Imo its only really wolf behaviour that needs tweaked,

Its just too easy to gather wolf pelts, therefore i think wolves should only be aggresive when

1. You hurt them(bow shot etc)

2. When you try to steal a kill from them

3.when there is more than one of them.

Otherwise lone wolves should be passive like in pilgrim mode(which is way more of a challenge for hunting)

Also would like to see lone wolves stalking you from a distance, like they are following you waiting for you to sprain an ankle or get closer to another wolf. Then they would charge.

[Oystershell]

I agree that the main problem with difficulty right now is wolf behavior. All this stuff about spawn rates is mostly just good luck.

I totally agree with the guy that said behavior should be made up of random "rolls". This would create much more dynamic, realistic, and dangerous wolf gameplay.

Also, one bullet to the toe shouldn't kill instantly. headshot should be the only one-hit kills.

[Genktarov]

I really like the idea of lone wolves not coming after you. This disaster is supposed to have made wolves more daring, not rabid. What would make sense is for there to be packs of wolves that will try to hunt you down and eat you. Perhaps lone wolves would go after you when you go below, say, 50% condition? Then they think you're weak and an easy kill.

I also really like the idea of random rolls and generally-improved wolf behavior. It would be nice to have wolves, rather than the constant thorn in the side, be rarer and far more dangerous when they actually do attack you.

[Naut]

Started my last Stalker Game in Mystery Lake - The first time i had to leave the map was because i ran out of matches. After 200 days.

You dont need a rifle or bow - meat is getting thrown at you every day. Either in form of deer hunted by wolf, which you then kill or scare away. Either way you get the meat. Sometimes you have to pay for it more than just with health, and have to throw in antiseptics, cloth or fur - but in 200 days i didnt run out of those by a far.

After i ran out of matches, i used the magnifying glass to get the fires going. It worked pretty well for some time, but then i had bad luck with the weather for over a week, so i had to eat uncooked meat, got sick and eventually ran out of antibiotics. So then - after 200 days - i had to move to coastal highway for the first time, and immidiatly found 40 matches again...

Now i stopped playing, since i really dont want to repeat another 200 days in Coastal Highway like this. I just hope there will be some changes and more challenges - oh btw - i set challenges to myself already, like not to leave a map before i found the bunker, and so on...

But there should be more, i just dont see the point spending the mid- and lategame with sleeping for 90% of the time.