Adjustable Sliders

[stray_cur]

Edit:  Now that I've been playing on Stalker (Mystery Lake), I realize that everything is closer to my 'ideal sliders'.  And wolves are actually quite handleable if you're prepped (torch/flare, meat to drop, good health) -- and it's good to have something else to prep for and worry about.  (And they're behavior may be reasoned as realistic given that they have no predators anymore (proliferate) and may start seeing humans as viable prey).  Wolves are good!

I still wonder about a lower wildlife respawn, as it might welcomingly force overnight hunting trips, stints at the 'hunters cabin', fishing, and maybe even relocating altogether (though other limiting factors may do that already in Stalker (like ammo, matches, etc) - I'm not sure yet.

---------------------------------------------

Why not "let you play with presets like the general weather conditions, abundance or lack of wildlife, abundance or lack of other Survivors, supplies, etc." -- like you mentioned in your Kickstarter.

Not only could it help resolve some issues for players but also help from your developer's standpoint, to see where the bars generally get set, between glampers and masochistic survivalists.

What I gather from professional reviews, forum comments and my own experience is that the difficulty settings are not hitting the mark, in that the overriding difference between them is wolf related. Yet, as you know, wolves are the least realistic part of the game in their current incarnation. So the harder you want the game to be the more you must inflict yourself with (zombie) wolves which come to be about as invigorating as mosquitoes, which is either not hard or not hard in the way people want.

So yes, sliders..

I'd try sliders like this, for example:

(10 being most difficult)

Weather: 9

Prey scarcity: 6 (like Voyager?)

Wildlife respawn: 8 (slow to respawn - forcing you to move on or fish more.)

Supplies scarcity: 8

Predator abundance: 7 (wolf-packs now and then would be cool / realistic).

Predator aggression: 3 (as in, maybe %30 of the time they'll take an interest, 20% follow through on that interest, depending on your health% and meat you're carrying.)

-- And maybe there'd be some to do with hunger/thirst/wood/ survivors!? ya!

In many cases I see sliders as a cop-out for visionless, indecisive designers, but in this case, at this stage, this game would lend itself well, and certainly players and perhaps you would benefit too.

[AverageGatsby]

Bumb would solve alot but honestly I think this would be a quite big update and with story mode being promised for spring who knows. I just generally don't think one needs to have special sliders for wolfs, they can still be attached to the general wildlife slider + general difficulty setting (which would also determine loot and your bodies needs).