UpUpAway95

Your neighbors ask you why you exit the door to your house every morning crouched and carefully look both left and right before heading to your car... to which you respond that you're checking to make sure there are no wolves nearby.

11 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me.

I think it has a lot to do with the somewhat sketchy advertisement for this game. It is still being primarily marketed as a story driven survival experience. While that is right and true and everything as much as it is clearly the primary goal of the developers, I think because of that most people buying the game aren't really aware of sandbox mode or even interested in it. And if you look at the history of sandbox, then you kinda realize that its mere existence is not really by design, but kinda just "happened" as a byproduct of early access.

Also: while I wholeheartedly agree with the no hand-holding philosophy of the game, which has inspired a lot of other games of the genre to do the same (most notably Green Hell which is brutally hard until you figure everything out, and then becomes almost boringly trivial), I can see how players that seek primarily light entertainment, and not a monumental challenge, are immediately turned away by this. And, honestly, it took me over a year until I even dared to give Interloper a try, and hardly anyone sticks with a game a year or even half a decade, such as I have, and many other people invested enough in the game to actively participate on the forums.

Interloper, and I would assume this is by design, really is just everything cranked so high the devs saw it as the ultimate challenge at the time, one which hardly anyone could do. And that today people play triple digit days runs of deadman just goes to show how good one can actually get at something (plus there is tons of knowledge available for those seeking it). It's just like with everything else in life: people never try most things, and what they try hardly anyone sticks with until they are really good at it. And yes I know there are individuals that would claim that Interloper is for casuals, and a true pro wouldn't play anything below nogoa blindfolded with hotkeys exclusively - in Finnish, of course, but being able to do a 100 day run on Interloper means you are freakishly good at this game, and everything beyond that is just outstanding >0,1% stuff.

So, yeah, as much as I would like more focus on giving Interloper more valid content, and having it balanced better, an even harder "official" difficulty, or more options to even better customize games .... I just see that I'm part of a vanishingly small, admittedly elitist crowd. So I guess I'm thankful they even keep Interloper in mind at all when releasing new things, and that they even throw in things like "As the dead sleep", which is clearly aimed at this vanishingly small player base.

It's on the steam achievement page, where you can see global achievement data. You can access it through your steam client - if you use steam for TLD.

 

The amount of hand holding done in this game levels is rather inconsistent (re their philosophy about not doing it).  For example, we get a flashing reminder every time we're on a slope.  Doesn't that qualify as hand-holding at all difficulty levels?  Shouldn't the player be able to decide (through toggles) how much hand-holding they individually require for themselves in a game.  I would love to turn off some of hand-holding features that are there; while I'm sure others would love to have more ot it in their games.

Frustrating mechanics are, in my experience, why beginners drops games before they've really had a chance to become invested in them.  Also, Hinterland has to consider that a portion of their player base may not be very familiar with video games in general.  What seems intuitive to an "old gamer" based on experience with other games is not intuitive for everyone.

I don't get where you're coming from when you imply that the content added in Blackrock is not valid for Interloper.  It is... it has the same effect as adding another zone... more saplings, more cattails, more cloth, and other supplies that don't respawn (except for the few items that wash up on the shores in some zones).  This extends the total amount of time the player can survive in the world before running out of those things.  An overall issue (at all difficulties) is now that the game world is so large and there are so many of those supplies available... and a portion of the player base has gotten good enough to survive indefinitely even at high difficulties... the "threat" of dying to things like starvation and the cold seem less and less likely to happen.   The basic concept behind Interloper is to survive on minimal resources... adding interloper specific "swag" defeats that concept utterly.

The question in my last post remains - Is there a compelling reason for any player at any difficulty to go any number of zones like Mystery Lake anymore?  The game world is just so full of "stuff."  When we can survive indefinitely without whatever new stuff they add, what's the point of adding anything... except for "exploration or exploration's sake."  Certainly, there is a lot in Blackrock to explore... at any difficulty level.

The T-wolves make Stalker -level gameplay slightly more difficult since the player has to face them in order to restock on depleted ammo.  The interloper player can go to any number of zones to restock on saplings and can choose from 3 easier zones (without T-wolves) to restock on their knives, hatchets, and arrowheads.  I don't think it prudent for Hinterland to add T-Wolves to, say, Forlorn Muskeg to "force" interloper players to face them... and I don't think special loot for just Interloper players should be introduced either.  It is what it is... and up to the individual player to decide whether going to any zone on the map is "worth it" to themselves.

ETA:  A route HL hasn't taken is to create enemies that are specific to difficulty levels.  That is, going with something like having T-Wolves spawn only in Stalker mode and spawn in more zones and regular wolves only spawn on Interloper.  Historically, they went with making the generic animals slightly more aggressive and spawn more frequently on stalker.  I'm not convinced though that going such a route would be a "solution" either.

14 minutes ago, Ghurcb said:

I think, Hinterland should remove this exploit with a torch. Attempting to start a fire with a torch should extinguish it. Yes, it's not realistic and there is no believable excuse for this. But the game would only benefit from removing it.

Starting a fire with a torch does not extinguish it in real life.  In fact, starting a fire with accelerant using a torch or even a match can cause a flare up that burns the person lighting it.  Interloper players, who often walk through areas carrying lit torches to ward off the cold and wolves, would definitely not benefit if they had to stop, extinguish their torch, and then attempt to light a new fire with a match (with a low chance of success and requiring tinder each time) while facing down a pack of T-wolves.

To get rid of the "exploit," all they would have to do is give lighting torches a less than 100% chance of success.

42 minutes ago, Ghurcb said:

Well... Not every steep surface in TLD is a literal mountain, sure. But that's like an association thing, you know? A person walks uphill, sees the mountain icon, and thinks "Oh, I'm probably walking on a steep surface, like the ones mountains are made of. Maybe the game is warning me about something?"

The icon we have right now doesn't look like anything, really. It's just a triangle with blurred edges. Anything remotely related to steep surfaces would be better then this.

I'd still prefer nothing at all to the distraction of the icon appearing and disappearing on the screen.  However, it would suggest a more standard icon road sign for "slope" - e.g. a yellow triange (i.e. caution symbol) with a black area showing the slope and the percentage of the slope shown in numbers inside the triangle.  (I don't have an image to post, but you can google something like standard slope indicators to get an idea.)

I like that tinder is no longer needed after Level 3 since I like to have the weight capacity available for something else.  Sure, it isn't very heavy; but I still prefer to use the space for other things.  If I want to bother with tinder for RP purposes, I can just make a "house rule" to use it regardless of my fire starting level.

I would like the option to burn it because I don't like leaving cattail heads lying about on every pond in my world.  I'd rather just burn them and be done with them.  If they think of a crafting reason to keep them, then great; but there would still probably be excess that I would like the OPTION to burn.

The chance of success is really not much of a concern at any level, since one can just commit/learn to light a torch first and then make as many attempts for as long as it takes to light a fire while still only consuming one match.  Tinder can be a pain though, since each attempt uses up the tinder.  Running out and having to make tinder while keeping an eye on the time your torch will remain lit before you have to use it to light another torch instead can also be a PITA.

Personally, I think the mountain icon would be every bit as unclear as the slope indicator.  I wish there was a way to turn it off completely.  As a player, I can see whether I'm on a slope or not.  They could insert a loading screen tip that says sprains are possible on ANY slope, especially when encumbered.  I know I've gotten a few even just climbing the little incline to get into Gray Mother's house.  When they first introduced sprains, I even got one walking over a snow drift on the road in Coastal Highway.  It certainly doesn't necessarily involve any sort of mountain.

Ultimately, is there a definitive reason for interlopers to go to, say, Mystery Lake or Coastal Highway or Pleasant Valley?  There is nothing in those regions either that can't possibly spawn somewhere else in the game.  I was of the impression that exploration of a variety of areas was its own reward, not just a location to be "beelined" towards to get "unique" loot specific to only one level of difficulty.

I agree with Salty Crackers and Jeff Peng.  Hinterland has an obligation to provide purchasers of the game with a quality experience regardless of the level of challenge they seek.  Their bread and butter is in catering to the largest segments of their playing population who are, for the most part, not the most vocal.

In addition, interloper players have a choice of 3 forges.  The addition of Blackrock brings the total of ammo forges to 2 for players who prefer to use guns rather than arrows.

ETA:  A note specifically to the OP - Consider this, if nothing in a region is worth braving Timberwolves in your game, you do have the option in custom to turn off Timberwolves.  If you leave them in your game  but never go to the two regions they are in, then you're not really playing up to the vanilla standard interloper experience.  They might as well not be there at all.  Braving the T-wolves for the sake of braving the T-wolves is all part of the standard "interloper" game setting.

There is a way to make all the regional acronyms consistent by adding an R to the end of each to denote the word "Region."  Therefore:

Mystery Lake Region would become MLR instead of ML.  Mountain Town Region would become MTR, Forlorn Muskeg Region would become FMR, etc.

Timberwolf Mountain Region would become TMR instead of TWM (dropping the use of a second letter from what is a single word).

Broken Railroad Region would become BRR.

and Blackrock Region would become BR.

The long one, of course, would be Hushed River Valley Region, which would then have 4 letters (i.e. HRVR).  For brevity, it could break with the pattern and still be clearly understood by remaining simply HRV.

2 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

Oh, sure, that would be nice in any case. But I feel Hinterland as bigger fish to fry for the time being 😉

Agreed.  Depending on how many items they might also deem worthy of a toggle, it could also be potentially a more cumbersome task than I'm imagining and might not even be possible without sacrificing performance on some platforms.  Of course, all those things to consider are balls that are clearly in Hinterland's court... not mine.  The bottom line is I enjoy what they've done so far and I look forward with enthusiasm to seeing what they'll do in the future.  Cheers.

Mods will be a good solution for some, but will not likely be available on all platforms.

1 hour ago, jeffpeng said:

I'm apparently really not very capable of expressing my thought in a coherent manner. The basic idea is: add full loot, like Stalker level, then crank other difficulties so long until it "feels" comparatively challenging. Since the cold will be much less of a problem with better clothing in the game, the challenge would have to come from other factors, like higher resource consumption, lower/no rest recovery, more dangerous predators. Now that I think of it .... that sounds a lot like that "Birchman Safari" setting someone used to play on Youtube. Basically Deadman, just with decent loot and birchbark tea.

There are players doing that now as you've noted.  Again, my apologies for interpreting your post as wanting Hinterland to add a "blanket" setting.  Still, I'd like some more options to add in individual items while maintaining the Baseline Resources Low setting and, alternatively, to turn off individual items when playing with a Baseline Resources Medium setting (which is where it is in Stalker mode).  The more options, the better... leaving the interpretation of how "difficult" the challenge becomes to the individual player.

1 hour ago, ChillPlayer said:

It's common to abbreviate location in TLD and with TWM we already have a three letter shortcut. BRM falls into the same reasoning. BP does not work because one - that's a gas station brand - and also because the prison is not the only thing in the region. But the region is called BlackRock Mountain officially, so it makes sense to abbreviate it the same as TimberWolfMountain.

Besides, the proposal was made by @stmSantana and he is the god of maps - his words are gospel, at least in my book

 

I really don't want to argue over this... it's not worth it.  However, your assurance is in error.  The map, when starting a new character, shows the region name as simply "Blackrock," not Blackrock Mountain.  When calling up the map from within the zone, the map is labeled "Blackrock."  When entering the zone, the region is shown as "Blackrock Region."  Like Blackrock Penitentiary, Blackrock Mountain is merely a single feature within the region.  The "god of maps" is Hinterland.  If they want to clear any discrepancies to allow for a consistent acronym (i.e. if they think it's worth it), I'm sure they will.  Until then, I'll probably just type in Blackrock.

10 minutes ago, jeffpeng said:

I'm not talking about a standard. Just a balanced custom setting that does include all loot, but still offers comparable challenge to Interloper.

I misunderstood then... my apologies.  How do you propose an "all loot" custom setting would be comparable to interloper?  The loot settings in custom don't control animal behaviors and such (i.e. the changes to wolf spawns you mention).  I'd be more inclined to think the solution would be to add in more custom toggles for individual items similar to how the guns are handled now.  E.g. Separate "on/off" toggles for items like knives, hatchets, arrows and broken arrows, heavy hammers, bedrolls, high quality clothing, saplings, reshis, rosehips, cattails, etc.  That way, even pilgrim players could set up runs where such items are missing entirely from their worlds if they desire... just to find out how possible it is to survive without them before, perhaps, advancing to runs with "stalker" aggressive animals.

1 hour ago, jeffpeng said:

I've been thinking about some in between game mode for some time now, since I actually dislike half the game not being in the game on Interloper. Technically there are a few things that are easier on Interloper than they are on Stalker, so maybe one can counteract this. Stalker has more wolves, for example. Fatigue is lower on Interloper. And even Interloper settings have a loot of room to balance out having access to more loot, like reducing wolf fear, or elevating smell range. Basically bringing the "good" parts of Deadman to counteract the availability of premium loot. I gotta think about this some more.

I don't setting up another "standard" setting will change anything.  Interloper is achievable through the custom menu and so is Stalker.  It's just a matter of matching the custom settings to the ones Hinterland used to compile their "standard."  It's the amount of deviation and variation from the standard that is limited by the current number of settings that are lumped together under single custom options.

Players who happen to be "interloper elitists" are not going to change their attitudes towards players who play on the other standard difficulties just by introduction of a standard dificulty setting between interloper and stalker.  For them to change their opinions, Hinterland would have to introduce a difficulty that is universally acknowledged as being even more difficult than interloper... and that would probably mean, unfortunately, that they would just become elitists over the new difficulty.

Adding in another standard difficulty is, IMO, only serves a purpose as a "recommendation" to beginners or people who don't want to become at all familiar with the degree of flexibility offered by the custom menu.  In short, I would prefer to see more settings added to the custom menu than a new "standard" difficulty... which enables me and others to get even more creative about their individual challenge runs.  (As I said before, I'd actually like to see the idea of "standard" difficulties eliminated entirely, but I do realize that will likely never happen because it is inherent in some to compare, compete and rank themselves against others rather than just challenge themselves.

24 minutes ago, ChillPlayer said:

 

In all honesty, I think my preference is mostly to just type out the word - Blackrock and not have to worry about other things acronyms can mean... but then again, I'm not typing thiis on my phone either. 😀

29 minutes ago, jeffpeng said:

This community will lose its mind over nomenclature.

I'm advocating for BKRK myself.  To me, BP stands for British Petroleum (and BR will always bring Broken Railroad to my mind first... love that zone.)

I don't really have any "house rules" as you describe beyond tinkering with the custom settings in different ways for each run I attempt... trying to make each run play differently than the run before within the limitations of the variability of settings that Hinterland offers.  Even without mods, this game is more changeable than most out there and that makes for a lot of replay value.  I would love to see a lot more custom options introduced for that reason.

I do set up challenges for myself, my favorite being to spend 50 or 100 days by spawning in and staying in a single zone.  For zones without forges, this makes the standard interloper loot settings (baseline resources low) completely impractical since it is very unlikely to find arrowheads, so I find it necessary to enable the guns in order to have a means to hunt the various animals.  I find the challenge still significant since ammunition is quite limited in the single zones even with relaxed loot settings (this includes Bleak Inlet, since one must leave the zone in order to access the ammo forge... which breaks the challenge).  I'm still looking for a way to get up that cliff without circling around through FM and ML.  For zones with forges, the Heavy Hammer will not spawn in the zone the player spawns in on interloper settings... which again means the loot settings need to be changed in the custom menu in order to make the challenge practical and for there to be any chance for the heavy hammer to spawn.

2 hours ago, ChillPlayer said:

No, it's BRM, Blackrock Mountain

 

How about BKRK?

I very much enjoyed your video.  Even if it is apparent that you did have a little bit of prior knowledge of the map due to having played Wintermute, you do demonstrate a lot of skill re the general gameplay.  Certainly, a challenge that you handled well.  BTW, I also very much like your narrative style.  Good job.

Haven't been around on these forums for quite awhile. and really just dropped in quickly to wish the entire Hinterland team Happy Holidays.  I've been thoroughly enjoying the last couple of updates.  Keep up the good work.  Am looking forward to Episode 5!

IIRC, I had this sort of issue a couple of years ago after playing the game for awhile offline (i.e. with the Xbox disconnected from the internet).  This was an Xbox One, not an X, but perhaps your issue is similar... might not hurt to check to see if you're online.

Too much micromanaging.  I like it the way it is since it provides for a means of fixing tools in zones like HRV.  However, if HL thinks it necessary, then the above is easily reduced to requiring a workbench to salvage any tool for scrap metal.

I don't see why the prybar would be unsalvageable.  In reality, the whole thing could be re-forged.

Nope - I've never experienced anything like that.  Perhaps your save file is corrupted.

Best course of action is to submit a bug report to Hinterlands.  They do sometimes go in and fix terrain where people keep getting stuck.

19 hours ago, Glflegolas said:

But that's not a problem, you could simply run them over. Even if not, wolves are simply too small to do much to a tractor. A bear maybe could theoretically tip it over, but it wouldn't be easy to do. The bears in TLD aren't good at dragging stuff though -- they won't even drag a fallen tree out of the way if you're hiding under it.

A bear would make quite a speed bump - lol.

Fire Master - I hate having to deal with tinder.