dbmurph22

Fired up a custom game with Interloper settings. Changed the firearms to both be present (also the heavy fog to random...not sure why it still does that), and started in BI. Checked both blinds on the FM side and neither had shell casings. In the past I've seen them there.

Just tinkered with a new Interloper game and decided to jump into BR after spawning in FM. Obviously usually almost go to ML but wanted to change it up. FM didn't have a hammer so half hoping at BR. BR is kind of like the Connector transition zone in some ways. And I knew the loot overall wasn't going to be great, but wow was it awful, even more than I thought. Then all the preds. Scratching by. Just reinforces why it always gets left out. Edge of map, not much loot, not much coal, no fishing, and there are other forges.

I've often been able to spot a TW wolfpack before it engages me, both in BI and PV for the story mode. Maybe with knowing they are out there I've moved more slowly than others when I 'm either in an area I suspect they will be (or a new exploration in their territory). Even in some of the far detection range of the custom settings that some YTers have been playing. Have others had more difficulty with farfetched ambushes and if so what has been the context?

Seems like it would be tough to fix some of those big wildlife situations I such things like the blinds. To prevent some of this awkwardness while still keeping vulneratbility to them, I wouldn't be against something like a stock cut scene for those situations and when you come back there's a stock pile of lumber of the destroyed blind and blind gone. Just trying to think of an easy implementation. Maybe the animal will pause for a second to regain its senses.

I like finding sort of unconventional home base ideas. I'm sometimes too freshly narrative driven, lol. Like maybe starting a homestead at Rabbit Grove or something. Just hanging out by the creek with Mr Black Choco, my bear friend. Starting at the campsite in -20 weather imagining all the cornhole of years past.

Just went on a madman mission to explore the new Inlet region. I wanted to use a new Interloper run and head straight there knowing it would likely end in a quick death but wanted to do as well as possible. Did quite well to go from Hushed to Milton to FM and then to the Inlet in a few days. Even the regular wolves are tricky now. Even more driven by madness since I still had no bedroll or hacksaw. Was able to sidestep two TW packs and a Moose. I figured spotting them before me was the key. It was getting night so I finally found what seemed to be a peaceful high spot but also a little bit of wind shade at times. Made my snowshelter. Ate some grub. Was really trying to decipher if I would be warm enough if the fire died. Did a tester. Seemed fairly ok. Most likely. But I'll never know since I forgot to drink my water.

What a bug. The devs have been watching too much Tremors again.

I do think late game "problem" is a bad term. It's not a problem and I wouldn't even go so far to even assess the expectations of others. It's just the current state of the game. Positives and negatives. We can all assess. Ultimately it's up to the devs create and then up to be to experience as I choose.

My "tough trick" comment was giving full respect to Hinterland on the difficulty and challenge they face with it and what they've gotten thus far. In fact, beyond what I was saying that was the main reason for saying it. I remember your thoughts on late game. They're good. Coping with the mundane. Player can choose new challenges or self-motivate. If neither appeal, can start a new run. I respect that. I do think there's a good deal of people who do like the "boring" aspects of the game still find the late game something they don't enjoy as much. And usually they do just as you say - they start a new run. With the amount of chatter about it, it seems like there is some validity to the point? It's a false dichotomy to say one is either fine with the late game standstill or has to have excitement or game motivated actions. And they don't always have to be near death struggle. And as you see in my "tough trick" point, I like the aspect of the "mundane" theme, and wish they could be incorporated together somehow with some late game zip (as you see I'm not much of an either/or person). Breaking down every pallet in the game and finding every cairn is just not my thing. @ManicManiac You're a pillar here and I have loads of respect for your presence here and what you bring to this great game and its community. Some of your comments though I half wonder why you even venture in the Wishlist subforum. Seems you're exceedingly pleased with the current aspect of the game to the exclusion of any additions or changes. I love it too - I just wonder what about the Wishlist subforum appeals to you.

I don't think it's linear though. Obviously, linear difficulty does play a role in frustration level to a large degree, but the type of difficulty and different elements of it have a role. I think the OP would like sweet spot on that line though - to make it harder but not too hard in later game. It's really a tough trick to pull off. How do you add challenges, wrinkles and more danger to the late game while still preserving 1) the feeling of achieving a better station than early game (ie progress!, the curve that I like which Fuarian was trying to invert) 2) still some of the aspects of later zen, routine and boredom that people like 3) avoiding totally random elements of difficulty/danger that are way unattached to player agency...but with still some unpredictability. @SpiritQKnight I'll try to consider some of these suggestions. You could maybe check the Milton Mailbag index to see if any of your suggestions have been discussed. I know the ruined food has and I think maybe the diet variety has as well. And seasons (which I don't think is happening).

Region connecting areas should not be affected. I've said this before but I think maybe people are working off each other instead of my clarification (ie @Moll now responding to @jeffpengs story, though I just clarified as quickly as I could for that reason). I agree it's too large of an impact. Non-transition caves were in the "middle" for me, but I think it's good they should not be affected. As I discussed earlier thematically, the dying of man made structures only makes more thematic sense, and preserving the caves falls in line with that (even the loading/non-loading nontransition ones) Thanks for the suggestion, but a 1% loss over a massive amount of time simply is too granular and not worth the work to implement. First you have a repeated condition loss% update and then the amount of days it would take to actually have a change would not be worth the work to implement if it did happen. I think you're maybe considering how to add more realism without too much alteration. I don't think to avoid things that are altering for only altering reasons is great. Does it add gameplay value and fit into/enchance the IP? That's the question. And balancing. I do think if it was in the game, the rate at which it impacts the game shouldn't be excessively drastic. But it would have a real role in what's happening, especially eventually - just not a primary driver. See what I said about the possible rate, above. Appreciate all the posting in this thread. If you would read the posts in detail before responding, it would be much appreciated. That way we can avoid as much repeated clarifications of misperceptions as possible. I'm not here to stand guard on an idea and if you watch throughout the thread, I've evolved my idea of it - with everyone's input. I have not much interest in being right, but just driven by the idea and principles of a good experience of the game. I'm open to debunking, with good reasons. I may start streaming a playthrough soon and I might implement this. It wouldn't be too difficult to do manually as it is. Cheers, everyone.

Can you explain "level geometry" - and how that would be altered (to save a follow up question).

Thematically I also quite like the idea of interior man made locations falling to irreversible decay as well. Some have worried that such a mechanic would disrupt the "frozen in time" appeal to the game, which I wholly agree with. I love that aspect. However, I feel like there are multiple themes in the game. One is the frozen in time feeling and another is the transience of humanity and the resilience of nature. I quite like that the things that would be dying would be artificial structures. Exterior locations would be untouched so the frozen in time feeling would still be there for this, but you get the passing of humanity with the structures slowly dying off. One note on the mechanic as I see it. As the game begins I foresee there being a table of possible interior loading structures that could be affected. Every 3-5 days the table would be rolled (for the whole world) and one structure would get marked. If that structure had not been previously marked, it now has some sort of threatened status the player could know about if they entered the structure. This is to prevent having surprise inaccessibility, which I don't think would be a good mechanic. Losing all your stuff by RNG is not fun - it's more fun if you did but knew it was risky. If a building gets repeated marks it could be inaccessible. Two rolls to inaccessibility would be the minimum. Certain structures could take more rolls to move them from threatened to inaccessible. Thanks for reading! (Edit: Inaccessibility would affect the game, but structures being "threatened" would obviously play an underestimated larger role given player decisions would very much hinge on some of this information - even with the possibility that a structure would be in this state for quite some time without actually getting rolled/rolled enough times to progress further!)

Thanks for the post Jeff! I enjoyed reading it. And thanks for interacting with the idea. A few things. First, I had said that transition areas wouldn't be subject to it, so in your story the first bit with Winding River wouldn't have happened or any other proposed situation that you're blocked from a region. Also you listed numerous exterior structures like bridges that became impassable and while that falls under the umbrella of though in the headline of the thread, that's also not what I propose (it would be really hard to implement as well). I'm mainly proposing interior loading areas that are not transition zones. I guess maybe non-loading caves or fishing huts, but not necessarily. No bridges. No roads or logs. No boulders or walking paths. In addition, conceptually with my feeling on the rate and prevalence of decay it would be incredibly long odds to get the kind of repeated stymie type of chain of events that you draw out here. That said, in the 1/100000 odds universe it did happen that would be quite a story! But again, encountering the decay repeatedly (even under the way I actually do propose) to the amount of sequence you allude to would be very long odds. But sure, it could contribute to your demise, but like all things in TLD, the idea is that it will be an element to your possible demise and play into your decision making. It wouldn't be dosed as a type of sole RNG killer. Also, the impact for newer players would be not high given that newer players don't tend to live too too long for the other reasons in the game and the structural decay rate would only begin to have an impact beyond a smaller one later in the game after some days have passed. Thanks again for posting.

I think a lot of ideas work well with pairing countering-ideas like this but I'm not sure I really like this because it just makes it too complicated with too much busy work. And it would be really difficult to implement given the variety of interior locations. And a lot of reasons for it would be balancing (as a lot of joint ideas are), but the idea of the decay in the first place is to counter some of the later ease of play (such as when you get cooking 5, etc). And it makes thematic sense as the days pile up. I think I agree with you about the transition zones after considering further. I would suggest those would be immune to decay. I think a lot of this is making it just too complicated. The best version of a suggestion is usually the simplest version that takes its purest essence, the one that has the most gameplay return relative to its complexity, and is the one easiest to implement. I think structural decay and a ramp up of inaccessibility to locations adds gameplay value as time increases (and its possibility rests in your mind). Some players are more nomadic but you shouldn't reward a certain playstyle drastically though. Therefore, it wouldn't be happening immediately to hurt slower movers, but its possibility would still create some itching. And it's not necessary that every structure or even most of the structures would be subject to it. Lastly, all implementation takes a helluva lot of work. But this would be reasonable. Interior locations wouldn't have to be messed with at all because they couldn't be accessed. The changes to the exterior of affected structures wouldn't even have to be drastic, just enough to create thematic sense for inaccessibility. And for some structures that have templates or template features a template inaccessible effect could be created for all. Remember they wouldn't be collapsing in real time. But it's computed after certain loads and sometime when you visit a structure it could be in its new state.

I love the openness of TLD and the open canvas feeling for player decisions that are driven by needs, but not by scripts. To be fair, the game "forces" you to do things pretty quickly, though. You can find your own way to do it, but the threat of death and the life support issues propping you up are pretty strong impetuses. I love hearing how people create their own goals as they get completely settled, like looting every zone and finding every cairn or weird challenges like giving each corpse a wolf hide burial or such. However, most players will say they love the early game the most. Not to say those fun late personal goals can't be fun too (and the most fun, for some). I actually do like the curve of advancing the character though and things getting easier (it's rewarding), so I wouldn't want total reversion to early game. Why not both in some way? We can debate which could be standard and which a custom setting.

Heh, I loved the mental image of the creaking trestle collapsing underfoot. But to be fair, I'm only thinking in terms of "status" of structures not that the actual collapsing would be happening in real time for any of it. That would be very hard to implement. Collapse of outside world structures (yes I know before I even suggested caves) is a big step and it's a pretty big strategic effect if transition zone structures are affected, too. But, in my mind, the idea doesn't have to get that crazy. You could just have other structures start to die to make limiter of options. I think it's good strategy design. Thanks for posting, survivors!

I think the OP was pretty frustrated. Was looking for others that felt similarly because that's what happens when you feel crappy. And I've felt similarly at some points with the wolves in the game (I remember doing a search for it once I got jumped by a wolf in Interloper). The game is peaceful, but it's permadeath so at times it can induce some of that response. It was nice to offer suggestions to help in case the OP was missing something to help get out of the frustration, but it quickly turned into a "who's right" debate with little utility. And of course it further progressed into more branches as these situations self-breed. There's really no need to engage. The game doesn't need for us to stick up for it at every small turn.

It may be harder to make this happen in the rolling game state of the outside world, but I think it would be much easier for areas/structures that take a load screen.

Hi Moll, under my proposed idea, you can NEVER die from the structural decay directly. It would just cause growing inaccessibility to structures in a semi-RNG status. I like my later addition to reduce randomness that you would get some inkling (some indicator, either in the world or overtly in display) if a structure is threatened by such a thing. Thanks for posting.

I dig. After the climbing update!

Have you had other instances of this happening. Thanks for posting the video but it's almost in that blurry zone where even previously a wolf would attack you by a fire if somehow their view of the fire was obstructed. I've been attacked by a wolf multiple times on interloper after they rounded a tree or something. I'm not sure if maybe the game was detecting the Camp Office porch as obstructing the wolf's fire detect.

I would love for fires to still work and for the fire detection range for them to flee to be lower than a normal wolf. Just think if you had a pack around you and you were trying to track where each one was. Oops, you have the fire up but there's one behind you that you forgot about, and.....you just happen to be standing between wolf and the fire. Cue slo-mo. Would make for some nice fire dancing.

They will eventually be in other areas, yep. There's always a chance they will be tweaked some, but overall I don't think the concept will change - a pack of wolves that work off morale and ignore most of what normally counters normal wolves. It is somewhat of a "broken circle," but there may be passive ways to deal with them to help with the first steps of that circle. My meaning is the first steps of like getting the revolver for instance or help with aggressively warding them off. Or advancing bow skill. It probably will start with good old fashioned avoidance. We may discover other ways to deal with them, even in nerve wracking ways (things like avoidance, minimizing risk/damage, distracting, those types of tactics). I think in some way that's some of the original intent (I think the wolves are their to induce anxiety and we aren't meant to blast them to bits or easily remove them). It is pretty daunting now, though, for certain. I'm going to be trying hard to make bear friends for when they come into other areas.

@Ahatch Yes, they can be harvested like a normal wolf. You get the regular wolf pelt. @tulkawen I agree and that's been a consideration that I haven't liked in that the area will just be either totally avoided or at minimum when fully kitted up. I think though they will eventually be on more regions so there is sort of a meta reason to visit the region and learn how to deal with them - at a point when you have less time invested.