Seven Screenshots Challenge (all difficulty modes allowed)

[Scyzara]

I've lately been thinking about the prerequisites for a challenge that would allow as many people as possible to participate while at the same time also being challenging and fun to play. And I finally came to the conclusion that the optimal challenge to serve these three (seemingly contradictory) purposes has to be one that can be played in all three difficulty modes without giving one mode an unfair advantage over the other two modes. A pretty hard nut to crack.

So I racked my brains how to solve this dilemma and finally came up with an idea: In order to negate the effects of hostile wildlife, loot amount and harsh weather, the criterium that determinates the player ranking (and thus the challenge's winner) mustn't be time, but some other factor. Preferably one that requires you to plan each of your steps thoroughly before rushing into hasty actions.

After realizing this I came up with an idea: Why not give all participants the freedom to pick their preferred mode, the duty to fulfill the same tasks (in this case: take seven special screenshots) and determine the winner not by the TIME they need to get the job done, but by the DISTANCE they have to travel? :idea:

Maps are the same size no matter the mode, wolf attacks can be sleep-healed without a disadvantage and weather effects become pretty irrelevant if you can stay indoors as long as you like, regain health and only leave once you're satisfied with the outdoor conditions. And if the hunger rates in Stalker or Voyageur honestly trouble you, you're very welcome to participate in Pilgrim instead.

The exact rules for the Seven Screenshots Challenge are thus as follows:

1. The challenge has to be done in a newly started game. You may freely choose your starting map and difficulty mode.

2. I'm suggesting seven different photo motives for extraordinary screenshots to you. In order to complete this challenge, you have to take all seven screenshots and post them here in this thread. You also need to post a screenshot of your overall distance travelled from the Statistics page. The final winner will also have to reveal his/her exact route planning, so you might want to take some notes about that.

3. The winner is whoever travels the smallest distance while taking all required screenshots. False screenshots can be unmasked pretty easily by comparing the route information to the submitted distance with the help of detailed community maps (like e.g. the great maps from Whiteberry).

4. You can choose freely in which order you want to take the suggested screenshots (I strongly suggest NOT to take them in order A->B->C because this order doesn't make any sense and will require you to cover a much greater distance than necessary!)

Thorough route planning without unnnecesary detours is the key to success in this challenge. You can of course use community maps to plan your routes if you're not totally familliar with the maps.

The seven screenshot motives are:

A) Last meal: Kill a bear in Pleasant valley and place a Coho Salmon next to its mouth. Make sure that both the Coho Salmon and the location (PV) are definitely recognisable, e.g. by taking a close-up screenshot of the salmon & bear's head with an F8 screenshot. The salmon mustn't be confusable with another fish.

B) Aqueduct: Balance over the damaged railroad in the ravine and drop five bottles of water on the intersecting board in front of the damaged rail. Take a screenshot of your "bottle line-up".

(Description was edited to enable the correct bottle placement - please scroll down to my next post for an example screenshot if you're still confused^^)

C) Knives aren't for children: Post a screenshot of a self-forged knife placed next to the toy cubes inside the Pleasant valley farmhouse.

D) TEA time at Misty falls: Write the word "TEA" by placing various cups of tea on the ground at the misty falls picnic area in Pleasant valley. Make sure that the place is recognisable (F8).

E) Robin Hood's funeral: Take a screenshot of the corpse inside the dam's lower basement that shows both some arrows and a survival bow (the arrows stuck in the door do count).

F) The misanthrope's rescue: Post a screenshot that shows you firing the flare gun over the misanthrope's house at misanthrope Island in CH.

G) Sledgehammer method: Drop a smallmouth bass in front of the harpoon of the Riken in Desolation point (as if the harpune was aiming at the bass). Make sure the bass is recognisable and cannot be confused with a salmon or another fish.

I think this collection of possible screenshot is both rich in variety and pretty challenging to take as it requires you to cross various maps to get the required items to the required places.

At the same time it is (hopefully^^) not that difficult that the number of participants is limited to the most experienced Stalker players only. Remember that you may absolutely play this challenge in Pilgrim mode if you don't feel up to killing a bear or climbing the TWM summit in Stalker.

The great number of possible routes to complete the challenge makes thorough and clever route planning WAY more important for your success than loot luck, weather conditions, wildlife attacks or other rng-based circumstances. Even the effects of knowing the maps by heart are as limited as possible (which is damn hard in TLD!) because using community maps is deliberately allowed!

Screenshots may be submitted until February 28th, 2016. We could also have a vote on the most beautiful and/or extraordinary screenshot submitted in the end and make that an extra category ofc.

And should it - to my utmost surprise - turn out that this challenge still favors Pilgrim players overly much, we might still declare seperate winners for every mode should that appear to become necessary.

Anyone keen to participate? I'll try my best to do it in Stalker mode.

[cowboymrh]

Wow... that's a brain twister Scyzara! Gonna give a shot!

[LyzzieLyzzie]

I love the idea! I think I'm gonna try it in Voyager.

[bethany]

Another fun idea! Thanks for taking the time to create these challenges, they've been very interesting to follow.

[ChillPlayer]

Awesome work and a nice unusual change from the familiar "fastest/longest" challenges, you clearly have put alot of thinking into it, when I find the time I'll definitly try to set a mark

Not sure about the freedom of difficulty setting, I think that Pilgrim players would be in a huge advantage over Stalker players.

[Trashmobb]

Challenge accepted sir.

I, too, will attempt this challenge in Stalker. I will begin today!

These challenges add a fun new element to the sandbox as we wait for story mode!

[ThresholdSeven]

I was going to try the Sea to Summit Challenge again but I might die of a caffeine overdose if I do. I loved participating and think it is a legitimate challenge even though there is luck involved with weather and loot spawns. It still requires a lot of knowledge and skill. A fair portion of luck is not a reason to invalidate a competition and I hope to try many more like it. Someone's gotta come up with a rule that keeps it from becoming the epic search for coffee and sleep deprivation (maybe allowing sleep and subtracting the time slept from the final time? That may also nullify a lot of "bad weather" luck).

On to this new challenge proposed by Scyzara.

I've been trying to come up with some unique challenges too and think I have some good ideas, but the 7 screen shots challenge is a fantastic idea that I just have to try. I used to always think of "longest time lived challenges" and was excited to play the sea to summit time trial which really changed things up. But this... this "shortest distance traveled" with the addition of all the tasks that need to be done to create the screen shots is genius, just friggin awesome. Score difficult to prove or not, I gotta try this just for the shear fun of attempting it and will be streaming it tomorrow. Thanks for a great idea Scyzara. There was no way in hell I was going to beat your time in the Sea to Summit challenge anyway

[Hyssch]

B) Bottles on a wire: Balance over the damaged railroad in the ravine and drop five bottles of water on the one-strand metal rail. Take a screenshot of your "bottle line-up".

I was halfway through this 7 screenshot challenge, but was not able to place those bottles on damaged single rail, that You have to walk to cross the ravine.

I can place bottles on rail before that damaged part and after, but not there where rails are just hanging in thin air.

Could someone post a pic who has managed to do so?

Or have I misunderstood this "Bottles on a wire" challenge?

I'm taking a brake from this challenge untill I know for sure, how I'm supposed to do this "Bottles on a wire"

[Trashmobb]

Mission Complete!

(I did this in Stalker as the Female character)

Total distance travelled: 30.8 miles

Screenshots appear in the order they are listed on the mission brief

LAST MEAL:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =605173206

BOTTLES ON A WIRE:

(The bottles were glitching inside the tracks with only the caps showing. I tried to center the screen shot on one so you could see....I also see in the posts that others are experiencing this issue)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =605172704

KNIVES AREN'T FOR CHILDREN:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =605173172

TEA TIME AT MISTY FALLS:

(I may have been drunk or hypothermic for this one, but I think it's still mostly legible)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =605058557

ROBIN HOOD'S FUNERAL:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =605172665

MISANTHROPE'S RESCUE:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =605173074

THE SLEDGE HAMMER METHOD:

(Thar she blows! .....just put the fish in the cooler!)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =605173123

Final Stats:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =605173293

[Scyzara]

B) Bottles on a wire: Balance over the damaged railroad in the ravine and drop five bottles of water on the one-strand metal rail. Take a screenshot of your "bottle line-up".

I was halfway through this 7 screenshot challenge, but was not able to place those bottles on damaged single rail, that You have to walk to cross the ravine.

I can place bottles on rail before that damaged part and after, but not there where rails are just hanging in thin air.

Darn graphic bugs... you're totally right, I'm sorry for the confusion. I should definitely better have tried out myself if the the bottle placement works as intended before posting this challenge. Thanks for telling me!

I changed the Screenshot description to "B) Aqueduct: Balance over the damaged rail bridge in the ravine and drop five bottles of water on the intersecting board in front of the damaged rail. Take a screenshot of your "bottle line-up".

Attached please find an example screenshot what I mean.^^

Trashmobb's Screenshot (or any other version of a screenshot that somehow includes the rail bridge and some bottles^^) does count as well ofc. Sorry again for the Confusion.

Congratulations for completing the challenge, Trashmobb! 30,8 miles (=49,6km) is also a pretty good distance! Hope I'll be able to finish my own run this evening.

I suggest in order not to spoil the route planning for others we should probably only ask the final winner (on Feb. 28th, that is) to post which exact path he/she travelled.

[elloco999]

I love the idea of this challenge Scyzara! I haven't played in a while, but this will get me playing again.

Thanks for putting so much thought into this!

[joki]

Feel free to post youtube / twitch playlists here, if you happen to record the runs; i bet people would like to watch them.

[Scyzara]

Allright, I finally finished my run after 40,2km.

Made some really silly mistakes and took a whole lot of notes what I might improve for a possible future repetition. #1 is not running around like a headless chicken after being mauled by a bear. *cough*

Well, at least I took a few pretty screenshots. :lol:

[Scyzara]

Please note Robin's (lovingly placed!) "Hood" . :lol:

[cowboymrh]

Love the Maisenthrope flaregun shot Scyzara!! Very Cool screenie!

[ThresholdSeven]

Just finished streaming this challenge and completed it with a distance of 53.7 Km. It was super fun and I might try it again soon. Thanks for coming up with this one Scyzara!

Edit: Just wanted to add that I did this on Stalker and I vote for leader boards being split up considering difficulty. I've only played Stalker with the exception of my first few games ever when I first started playing the game so I don't really know all the differences between the different difficulties, but I from what I've heard, loot, animal aggression, calories and weather are vastly different depending on the difficulty. All four of these were great hindrances to my progress and the trip would most definitely be easier on voyageur and especially pilgrim if this is so.

I've also mentioned in another thread that counting "time awake" might be something to consider instead of the entire time taken in time trials. I know this isn't a timed challenge, but it is still interesting to see the completion time for this challenge. Counting only the time awake would allow sleeping freely (to regain endurance and condition) and avoid the epic search for coffee and let the player wait out bad weather, which would nullify a large portion of the luck factor that consists of weather and coffee spawns. Coffee can still be beneficial and bad weather can still screw you over even when sleeping freely just like in a regular survival run where time survived is the main point, but this would greatly even the playing field.

[Scyzara]

Just finished streaming this challenge and completed it with a distance of 53.7 Km. It was super fun and I might try it again soon. Thanks for coming up with this one Scyzara!

Edit: Just wanted to add that I did this on Stalker and I vote for leader boards being split up considering difficulty. I've only played Stalker with the exception of my first few games ever when I first started playing the game so I don't really know all the differences between the different difficulties, but I from what I've heard, loot, animal aggression, calories and weather are vastly different depending on the difficulty. All four of these were great hindrances to my progress and the trip would most definitely be easier on voyageur and especially pilgrim if this is so.

I've also mentioned in another thread that counting "time awake" might be something to consider instead of the entire time taken in time trials. I know this isn't a timed challenge, but it is still interesting to see the completion time for this challenge. Counting only the time awake would allow sleeping freely (to regain endurance and condition) and avoid the epic search for coffee and let the player wait out bad weather, which would nullify a large portion of the luck factor that consists of weather and coffee spawns. Coffee can still be beneficial and bad weather can still screw you over even when sleeping freely just like in a regular survival run where time survived is the main point, but this would greatly even the playing field.

Glad to hear you had a good time, did you take some screenshots? I'm sorry I have to insist (at least) on the Statistics screenshot to accept your run.

Regarding a difficulty mode split:

As I've said in my previous post, I'm going to monitor this possible "Pilgrim supremacy" very closely. IF it turns out that Pilgrim Players really DO have an advantage, I will definitely separate the modes. But I for one am not convinced yet that this is even the case because I personally rather found it damn convenient for this particular challenge (in which every step counts and you need to move as little as possible) to have wolves running towards me. Being able to pick up your food right on the move without straying from the optimal route (in order to hunt or loot houses for food) seems to be a pretty big advantage that probably evens out a lot of the disadvantages you mentioned.

I can ofc. make notes about the hours awake from every player just for fun (IF they kindly post a stats screenshot, that is ) , but I'm not going to make that in any way a winning criterion. I wrote in my first post that this challenge is meant to be played time-independent, thus people will almost certainly play (and already have played) it that way. They will e.g. have taken their time not only to sleep, but also to repair their clothes & tools, craft fur clothes, loot all houses thoroughly and so on. I feel that adding some time-dependency through the backdoor would be very unfair to them. And it would change the particular spirit of this competition ("don't hurry, think thoroughly before you act") which is something I don't want. Hope you understand that.

[ThresholdSeven]

I will add screenshots soon to this post. Trying the Challenge again.

Edit: I totally understand your concerns about difficulty mode and awake time. I just wanted to offer variations for fun. You bring up a good point that having wolves deliver their meat to you in Stalker can be an advantage. I didn't realize it until I saw my own stat screen in this post that I only ate 1 kg of meat. Fish must not count in that stat because I ate lots of the fish I caught while trying to get the bass and salmon.

I found it exciting that the fish part of this challenge does offer a time dependency factor as you must get the fish to the checkpoint before it deteriorates. On my first try, the salmon I placed next to the bear in Pleasant Valley was at 5%!

I just finished a second try and streamed the entire run.

My final distance traveled was 36.3 KM

Here are screen shots of the 7 checkpoints and one of the stat screen. I will provide screen shots of the journal pages if requested.

[Scyzara]

Wow, 36, 3KM is really efficient, ThresholdSeven! Congratulations!

You're right that the darn fishes' conditions melt away like snow in the sun, my bass was below 20% condition when I reached DP, too. Definitely makes the challenge a little more difficult as it's another factor to consider during your route planning.

Current leaderboard:

#1 : ThresholdSeven......... (36,3km / 15d 22h / 154h awake)

#2 : Scyzara................... (40,2km / 16d 17h / 179h awake)

#3 : Trashmobb............... (49,6km / 18d 21h / 132h awake)

[ThresholdSeven]

The best thing about this challenge is that you don't have to only map out the shortest distance between the 7 checkpoints for screen shots, but that you also have to consider where to get the extra supplies like the flare gun, bow and knife. The deterioration of the fishies is an added bonus that makes you have to temporarily consider time. All those elements make this a great challenge. I hope that Story mode has some similar things because this was super fun.

From what I learned on my last run, I think it is possible to get under 30 KM.

[mellow_swe]

Great challenge Scyzara!

Had lots of fun with this one.

Got inspired by Thresholdseven watching his stream and got some tips from that so I can't take all the credit myself but I managed to do it in 23,3 km.

If anyone is interested I'll gladly share my route as I think it can definitely be improved on.

The only screenshot I am unsure of is the Last meal one as it is not immediately clear that it is in PV. I was hoping that the outcropping in the mountain in the background would be easy to recognize though. It's near the cave below Signal Hill.

Screenshots below:

Thanks for taking the time to think this up!!

[Patrick Carlson]

Really enjoying these. Thanks everyone for sharing. Seeing some familiar places, but in a new light.

--Patrick

[ThresholdSeven]

23.3 KM is amazeballs

[Scyzara]

Wow, 23.3 km is definitely close to the optimum! Congratz!

I think I will give this challenge another try myself next weekend or so!

Current leaderboard:

#1 (Stalker) : mellow_swe..............(23,3km / 9d 8h / 79h awake)

#2 (Stalker) : ThresholdSeven......... (36,3km / 15d 22h / 154h awake)

#3 (Stalker) : Scyzara................... (40,2km / 16d 17h / 179h awake)

#4 (Stalker) : Trashmobb............... (49,6km / 18d 21h / 132h awake)

[illanthropist]

Better gate my skates on, only just found out about this game last week can't get enough of it!