Greyhounder

Thanks for your comprehensive post, ManicManiac. I enjoy your view that it is largely the players responsibility to make survival interesting and that it is not a fault of the game itself. I agree that a big strength to TLD is its ability for creativity. However, in your example of a personal challenge, you only mention achievements that were set by the developers. More of these achievements would help, but I believe they are only half of the solution to what I see as an enjoyable longer play problem. I respect you don't see that as a problem. For me as outlined in my post, having impressive tools and little beyond my own creativity to challenge them I feel is a waste of the game to offer higher scaling. I may be in a minority, but I did not find it that difficult to get a hang of the current survival situation within stalker mode. I found interloper tuned too harshly for my RNG tolerance, but I haven't played that mode it in a long time. Your mention of the old bear from the challenge mode making an appearance is the type of situation I'd endorse. In my post I specifically mentioned random environmental events, like animal conflicts. I don't believe such events would detract greatly from the developer's vision for the game. Perhaps my specific ideas would, but it was more the challenge mechanics I was interested in than any particular one.

I like your observations, odizzido. If you do find the time, I'd like to see what your ways to solve this are, even if they are impractical for the game direction. Running out of ways to improve condition in the game is an angle I had not considered. Personally, I think the items already in the game give more than enough condition utility for the challenges survival mode currently presents. Though to build on what you suggested, scaling those items better, or adding greater challenges to acquiring them would increase their significance and increase the overall survival challenge.

Thanks ajb1978, I edited the thread topic to show I was referring specifically to survival mode as this may not have been clear in my post.

Hello, my issue is there is still a significant lack of content for longer survival mode play. In recent updates, new areas have added scenery and play style flavour changes. Bullet crafting added more long term weapon utility, though a lack of weaponry was rare for those familiar with the game. Auto-walk is welcomed, but that would not take months to develop. As an experienced player (600+ hours on steam), I find after having explored all the areas, crafted/gathered the highest gear (approximately in-game day 50), there is nothing to do but rinse repeat daily living needs towards the more grinding achievements. No incentives or challenges for long term survival play make the brilliant foundation of this game burn fast. To me, the balance of new mechanics (moose, timberwolves, crafting, etc.) seems to be far out weighed by refinements for quality of life, new player, and story mode problems. I currently see the survival mode in a state of having an expansive tool kit for too little problems. Interloper does tune these problems into the extreme, but the challenge of wandering around for food is not particularly enjoyable as a primary goal in itself over longer play times. I would love to see more end game complexity added without relying on grinding achievements. I'm sure the developers and community could offer many better ideas for incentives, but some to illustrate my point (and show I'm not simply complaining) are: - Random environmental events: such as, more rare spawning challenge animals like a cougars/eagles, birds/insects that you can track towards special plants/animals, unique weather conditions (e.g. lightning storms/fires/tsunamis), aircraft/seacraft/spacecraft crashes, beached whales or large animal carcasses drawing wildlife, more wildlife conflicts, horizon smoke signalling puzzles with unique rewards, radio puzzle stories with unique rewards - Complex crafting items that take playtime investment: such as, clothing with unique perks, mini agriculture/reforestation for growing food/medicine, bigger traps, - More edibile flora to encourage longer freestyle play away from resources - Ingame lore objectives: following stories through an area, following clues from an NPC I love this game, it's my favourite way to relax. Thank you for reading, and I hope something can develop from this post.