gotmilkanot

I basically use the dot reticle (that appears when you're holding the bow) as a gauge for where to aim.

Arrows travel in projectile motion so place the dot slightly higher than where you want the arrow to land. How far up you should place the dot depends on how far away you're from the target.

Once you're satisfied with your dot placement, draw the bow and just let it go without hesitation. No point drawing the bow for too long as it will start to sway left and right, making it even harder for you to aim.

I'm fine with no jumping in this game but there should be, at the very least, the ability to vault over short fences or tree branches.

I know we're carrying a 40kg backpack but if we can climb ropes and ledges with it then I don't see why the game doesn't allow us to step over tree branches. For vaulting over short fences, I don't mean it like how they do it in shooter games but just a slow and careful one will do (like you put one leg over and sit on the fence, and get the other leg in).

I'm in for a more varied cooking system. Doesn't have to be super tedious with lots of ingredients. Some simpler stuff like meat stew, reishi mushroom soup or even dried meat (which could be great travelling food in late game) will do.

If you can survive past day 50 on Interloper, you've pretty much beat the difficulty. The world doesn't get any colder than that and it'd be just a matter of time before you get careless/unlucky and get killed by a random wolf.

I'd have to say my least favourite base is the Maintenance Yard in BR. The yard itself is infested with at least 2-3 wolves and they can be pretty well-hidden among all that clutter.

It's a good stopping point to get warmed up/restock before the trip to the Hunting Lodge but I just don't see any long term benefits in staying there unless you like eating wolf meat. I find the forge really redundant too since you're most likely to be already equipped with the bow and arrow before you even step into the wolf territory.

1 hour ago, odizzido said:

In custom games if you turn off sleeping health regen it helps an awful lot. It doesn't solve the actual issue being discussed here, but it's a huge bandaid.

Come to think of it, it actually does solve the problem. Since starvation technique makes use of health regen from sleeping to heal back the condition lost from starving, turning it off means the only way to heal is to meet all 4 needs during the day so the player is forced to not starve. Could be something people can try if they think starvation technique makes the game too easy.

But I guess the only question is whether one wants to force that kind of playstyle onto other players in a single-player game where freedom plays a big part.

Just want to say that Hinterland prioritises gameplay over realism. The loading screen literally says not to attempt any of the game mechanics in real life because they simply don't work.

As for exploits, I gotta say it's up to the player's choice. Just because they're there doesn't mean you HAVE to use them. If you think starvation technique makes the game easy, then simply challenge yourself by not starving. If you think Cooking 5 is too easy to get, then make it harder for yourself by not cooking pieces of 0.1 kg of meat. If you think mountaingoating is cheesing, then feel free to climb the ropes down from the summit instead of the shortcut.

It's a single player game, so you have the freedom to either play the game or "game" the game.

Also, I'm not entirely against the proposed idea but judging from other afflictions in game, I think the affliction has to be in the official modes first before it can become an option in custom mode. Probably why those who are against the idea are strongly suggesting that this will force a specific playstyle on them.

Everything on Interloper is trying to kill you, thus no grace period for Cabin Fever.

It can be a little annoying in early game Interloper when you don't have warm enough clothes to sleep through the night at the back of cave without a fire. But generally, if you're mostly on the move during the day and do your cooking/boiling water outside, the risk shouldn't even show up unless say you're crafting animal clothing or get stuck in a building with back to back long blizzards.

I agree the mechanic is not perfect, but it adds to the difficulty. Without it, you can just hibernate and pass by weeks quick without even going outside.

4 hours ago, piddy3825 said:

I'm curious why these and not the actual hatchet and hunting knife?    same wear yes, but harvest times are longer with improvised.  Do you sharpen them using your whetstone?  

OP mentioned he/she is playing on Interloper difficulty where the normal hatchet and knife don't spawn. The only tools that spawn in Interloper are prybar, hacksaw and hammer. So you've got to craft the improvised ones by yourself.

Improvised versions degrade faster than normal ones after use, also tend to break easier but can still be sharpened with whetstones.

24 minutes ago, Mistral said:

The respawning ability of birch bark is indeed why I prefer using it for warming buffs rather than reishi and rose hips, but for that same reason I don't carry with me quite as much because you know you can get more, once you hit those birch tree zones.

That's a good strategy on fishing tackles, I should start using that more (later in the game). I rather use the kits first, you know to wear them out of the way, but for end game they will be more optimal way to go

I must admit I'm a birch bark tea addict myself so my high consumption of it makes me collect a bunch of birch bark while travelling

Honestly, there are plenty of sewing kits around even on Interloper so you don't really have to worry about them running out once you've crafted your animal clothing. I think there's sewing kit wear reduction from L4 mending onwards too, not sure if it applies to fishing tackles though.

My list of EDC items is very similar to yours except a few things:

At least 4 coal - I do have a stable stockpile of coal in my bases so I don't hesitate to throw one into a fire when I need to quickly warm up and make a hot tea. I can take out a bunch of torches from the fire too so I hardly carry a torch around.

No accelerant - I just recently reached L5 firestarting so I'm deciding to ditch this.

At least 2 ready birch bark tea with plenty of prepared birch bark - since they respawn, this is my go-to tea if I need to warm up for a bit. The restore condition buff can be helpful too so I do make it a habit to pick up as many birch bark as I can find whenever I pass by one of those birch bark groves.

Hacksaw - can be quite useful if I need to harvest some meat quickly from frozen carcasses when I can't start a mag lens fire.

No sewing kit - I carry 2 fishing tackles instead for mending since they're incredibly light and pretty much renewable (scrap metal from beachcombing). Once they drop to about 10% condition, I leave them in my fishing hut for fishing instead.

1 cooking pot and 1 recycled can - The cooking pot can be useful if say I get stuck in a cave during a blizzard and I want to sleep 1-2 hours with a fire ongoing, I can boil some water during that time to not waste the fire. I know if I carry one cooking pot, I might as well carry two to double the efficency but I don't need that much water either. Also I tend to have alot of bases that I rotate in between, I just leave one cooking pot at each so I can always have 2 cooking pots whichever base I go to.

Lantern - I just hate navigating in the complete darkness so this is more of a personal preference for me.

30 minutes ago, Mistral said:

Well fed on Interloper is always kind of waste of food anyway. In most of cases you can easily take food damage during day and heal it overnight by bringing your calories to the limit prior sleeping.

Well fed, I'm not sure when I'd ever need it, unless I was like carrying excess cargo from Summit to Mystery lake or something and I didn't have moose satchel. But even then I'd probably drop off stuff to PV farmhouse etc and come get it some time later. 

(The freezing damage can be compensated by torch travelling and drinking loads of hot reishis, rose hips and birch barks. Usually much more reasonable than passing time indoors - which some of the maps lack anyway)

True, I'm on day 105 and still using the starvation technique. I just don't see a need to eat during the day on Interloper since passive healing only applies when all 4 needs are met and most of the time I'll be freezing even with animal clothing so the healing potential from the food is being wasted.

With the moose satchel, 35kg carry capacity is plenty of space on Interloper and I don't think I've ever needed more than that unless I'm hauling coal from the mines to my bases.

1 hour ago, dahemac said:

My current clothing. Warmth +26°C Wind +10°C

This is more than enough to sleep in Mountaineer's Hut/two layer caves without a fire even during blizzards so you don't have to worry so much.

Also, I would swap slots for deerskin pants and snow pants if I were you. Warmth is cumulative so it doesn't matter if the warmer snow pants is worn as inner or outer layer. But you're missing out on the extra bite protection and waterproofness from the deerskin pants if you wear it inside. Deerskin pants are also way more durable so by wearing it outside, you can slow down the natural decay of your snow pants.

Other tips on what to bring to TWM; bring cooking pots if you want to stay there for a while. I don't think they spawn in TWM.

I recently got into Interloper too after playing a Voyager run exclusively for too long until I find myself almost impossible to die in that mode unless I choose to.

My take on Interloper is you are expected to lose condition during the day from freezing damage while travelling. You can always recover your lost condition through sleep during the night but you can only recover 32% condition max per night so try not to get below 50% condition. Coal and crafted teas are your best friend on Interloper as they can help you withstand the cold a lot more. Birch bark teas are pretty useful too since they can restore a tiny bit of condition passively after consumption.

Also, you might want to get the best non-animal clothing as soon as possible before they get ruined. I would even forgo Well Fed buff to allow myself to travel from region to region more freely to find rare clothing, reason being you can always get Well Fed buff again but you'll be permanently missing out on the extra 1°C from the second pair of thermal underwear if it gets ruined by the time you find it.

20 minutes ago, Valuable Hunting Knife said:

I think the longer saves are somehow linked to a bug after v1.78 that was causing the game to crash when you exited an interior- it would freeze on the loading screen before the little wolf icon appeared.  I don't think it was universal, but for me it was almost impossible to play as it would happen about every 4-5 times you left a building, only way out was ctrl/alt/del. 

Looking back through my emails to HL reporting the crash bug they thought it was fixed by a change in 1.81 ([General] Disabled Save performance improvements as they caused some Player’s sessions to enter an unsavable state. As a result of reverting these changes you may notice a slight pause when saving. We are continuing to investigate the cause of this ). 

In fact this didn't work, and so there was a further successful fix in v1.82 ([General] Fixed an issue that could cause players to crash when transitioning between an interiors and exteriors.)

My guess is that they somehow need to undo what they did in v1.81 that is causing universal slow loading times, but without inadvertently bringing back the crash bug that was solved in v1.82- anyway the upshot of all of this is hopefully long loading times are being actively looked at and won't be with us forever.

 

 

 

There were 2 bugs prior to 1.81: one is game entering into unsavable state (the confirmation text 'Saving...' no longer appears suggesting there's no save action being done) and the other is game crashing at loading screens.

1.81 fixed the former issue but at the expense of longer saving times which OP is concerned about. The latter was fixed in 1.82 and seems to be so far so good as I'm not getting crashes anymore.

3 hours ago, Arran said:

In all other game modes you can regenerate upto 90% of condition in 1 sleep session. Interloper is only game mode where you regenerate much less and its much more natural i think. What is not natural is that eating 500 calories before sleep is enough for your belly

I dont propose any micromanaging calories. You will just need to eat more if you take condition hit. Its natural you need more proteins to recover if you are wounded. It will also fix "hibernation" method - if you start starving, eating just 500 calories to recover during night simply wont be enough.

There are many unrealistic aspects about this game. It can take weeks to heal from a sprained ankle in real life, not just immediately after you apply a cloth bandage in-game.

One deer should feed you for weeks in real life, but can only feed you 3 days max on Interloper if you're maintaining Well Fed buff. If you're using starvation technique (750 calories per night's sleep), you can stretch a deer to over a week which actually makes more sense to me to be honest.

Games are meant to be fun, and will lose some of the fun if they were made to be too realistic.

I think the current mechanics are fine as they are. You get Well Fed buff as an incentive if you don't starve, and for those who use starvation technique to save resources, they have to trade it off by managing their inventory more often to not get encumbered.

I'm not sure what difficulty you're playing on but I feel that condition recovery from sleep is pretty balanced on Interloper since you can only recover 32% condition max from one night's sleep (10 hours). On Interloper, even with animal clothing, weather is still very cold and you're expected to take freezing damage during travelling which drains 20% condition per in-game hour. You take alot more damage from wolf struggles and you can be one-shotted by a wolf in early game with poor clothing.

Also, you hardly ever need to hibernate except in early game Interloper. Although Well Fed buff is nice, I find it a luxury and waste of time in early game Interloper where you have to loot regions fast during the first few days when the weather is still forgiving so I do use the hibernation technique. Not too sure if I'll like micro-managing calories.

19 minutes ago, sonics01 said:

die

 

Good point. IMO I'm more close to #1. I'm not giving up just after 50 days, though. The only one loper character in my account survived longer than day 200, and 2 are around 100 days. Total is about 410 days. I admit, I feel very bored after 200 days and started new runs. A lot of loper characters are dead or forgotten during early game trials and tests, most of test runs are died or forgotten less than day 10. But I learned a lot about the efficient opening and route, especially around HRV and Milton. 

At the same time, I also have an idea of pursuing 500 days achievement and cartographer achievement using 200 days character, because he is kinda close to #2. That character still needs to finish the "complete farming" in HRV, TWM, and BR. But That guy is the most closest one to #2. 

I was just thinking that TWM summit can be too easily neglected, or becoming a place where players visit only once during interloper. I suggested several ideas which could turn TWM as 

1) Good at opening. 

2) Revisit again at mid-late stage. 

Now I'm thinking, it would be better to distribute some items all-around the map, not only for summit. 

So I was thinking that maybe some "good loots" in the TWM summit or near TWM summit will make this possible, which fits well for both #1 and #2 type players. But OK, some suggestions looks like OP. I also understand, there is a reason why devs removed Moose carcass from HRV loper. But I still think some combinations of items, such as fixed thermal underwear and 50% chance one single arrowhead might be good to bring some more intention to TWM. Not too much, just very subtle + slight level, which would be just enough to "scratch the itchy points". 

 

 

Good point about the thermal underwear, I'm happy with either fixed or possible spawn at the summit. Plus, they do decay pretty fast so that'll motivate players to summit early in the run. I was hoping to get my second pair at the summit honestly but I had no idea whether it can actually spawn there since I wasn't looking at loot tables. Didn't find them at the summit but I wasn't too disheartened either since I'll be able to find it somewhere as long as I sweep through regions fast. Managed to find the second pair in Milton on Day 62 in the end, although they were already at 8%.

BR can be pretty disappointing with the loot, even more so if you already find summit loot disappointing since the place is a bottleneck region infested with wolves.

Just looted HRV today, found goodies like ear wrap, combat pants, mackinaw and one revolver round (most probably bugged?) but again, I already have all the clothing I wanted so just dropped them at the Stairsteps Lake cave. Still a good place to sweep for saplings IMO, harvested about 10 birch and 8 maple but I'm pretty sure I missed a few since the weather is pretty bad.

33 minutes ago, Niskavuori said:

AAAAAnd we have a Winnerrr!

Thanks Gotmilkanot!

Glad to be of help

There's a two layer cave just opposite of Hermit's Cabin. Walk up the slope in front of the cave and map on top of the slope, you should be able to trigger it.

10 minutes ago, sonics01 said:

Well, you didn't say about Mackinaw and others in later part of your post, very easy to misinterpret you are just here to tackle. 

Regarding some OP item comments, they are just brainstorming effort of mine about what kind of combination would be good as an incentive of tail section, to lead more players (even players like me who thinks the current TWM is not worth) to visit TWM and the peak. Because currently, apparently it is not only me who thinks the same way: loot in TWM is good but not enough. I still think items in loper tail section is White Elephant.

I still think, if moose carcass and bear carcass is placed somewhere near the peak but not in the peak, then wouldn't it be OP? If that feels too good incentive than OK. I'm not here to change your mind but you can't change mine too. One single arrowhead is not OP, that I can assure you. HRV sometimes offer that with very good chance, and even Milton Orca sometimes offer that with low chance. Why not in peak of TWM?

You can doubt whatever you want, as long as you want. I don't care. 

Like I said, my main concern was about adding arrowheads, bear and moose hides at the summit. You can add all the other rare clothing spawns for all I care. In the end, I only need one Mackinaw, one Combat Pants, two Thermals etc. and any extras I find are going to be scrapped into cloth anyway.

If you're the kind of player who likes to min max everything and speed run the first 50 days and start a new save all over again, then sure maybe summit loot is not good enough for you.

But I don't. I only intend to play one Interloper run and aim to explore the whole world without looking up loot tables and survive as long as I can. I may have left TWM after looting the cargo containers, but I'm definitely coming back again to map/get all saplings etc. So the current summit loot for me is more than enough.

To each his own, I guess.

If you actually read my first reply, I did say it won't be a bad idea to add a chance of Mackinaw if that makes you happier. I don't have a issue with the current loot but honestly don't find adding chances of rare clothing spawns on the summit too overpowered.

The reason I seem to be nitpicky to you is that you claim Interloper is easy for you yet suggest things like ready made arrowhead, moose and bear hides which is just going to make Interloper even easier for you. Some stuff you say just don't click and at this point, I'm even starting to doubt your claim about Interloper being easy for you.

1 hour ago, sonics01 said:

  

I'm one of the person who thinks interloper is easy, and I still disagree with you. But OK let's say moose and bear carcass in the summit is OP. I think devs deleted moose carcass from HRV in loper for the same reason. That part is understandable. 

But still, tail section items in loper difficulty is not worth the effort and time. Distress pistol and speedy 2 bear coat is not only TWM thing. You can get fixed distress pistol and some rounds from Ravine basin (If I remember correctly, it was 3 rounds from there). Ravine is much easier and faster to approach and easier to optimize the plan and path. Closest bears will be ones in the Coastal Highway. Using a flare gun, bleeding out time of a bear after a single headshot hit is 30 min. I never had critical one-shot kill against the bear using flare gun, but I guess it should be possible. After harvest, I usually cure them in Fishing Camp, and head to DP to use the furnace from Riken. On the way, I check Quonset or Misantrope if there are available bears. If not, go to DP. If yes, kill the bear, harvest, and cure. You don't need to climb up there just for distress pistol and 2 speedy bear coats.

No where in my post says getting to the summit for the distress pistol is the only way to get 2 speedy bear coats, it's all about the starting spawns. If I happen to spawn in TWM and manage to find a hacksaw quickly, obviously I would go for the distress pistol at the summit instead of the one in Ravine, that's just common sense.

Not sure why you keep emphasising on the effort and time needed to summit when it's not even a big deal. Even if you take your time and walk from point to point, it only takes 1.5 days max from Mountaineer's Hut to the Summit. 1.5 days of travel for a guaranteed distress pistol w/ 8 shells, firestriker, ear wrap and matches sounds like a pretty damn good deal for me. Besides, wouldn't you be able to summit even faster since you claim Inteloper is too easy for you?

Also sewing kits and whetstones are everywhere lol, how is a few extra of them at the Summit going to make a difference to you anyway?

8 hours ago, sonics01 said:

First of all, I don't think it is spoon-feeding. You still need to invest time and effort to climb up there. You need a time cost to harvest and time to cure. But OK let's say they are OP. At least I agree that too early bear hide and moose hide would be slightly OP. If bear and moose are OP then how about a wolf carcass near the tail section? A wolf carcass wouldn't be OP.

And I don't think my suggestion breaks the fun of you and other's loper playing fun. I'm just suggesting an idea that the items in TWM summit is not worth the effort so it needs slight buff. I don't think slight buff wouldn't hurt yours and anyone's fun. I don't think this suggestion is such "big" enough to touch the "fun" of some players. If devs don't like it then they wouldn't do that. But it is not only me who thinks the TWM summit is not worth the effort, there are some others too.

To me, it's still spoon feeding. The "difficulty" in harvesting a pre-spawned moose carcass pales in comparison to having to craft a bow and arrows or get a distress pistol so that you can finally hunt one (that is if you even manage have to find one in the first place).

I don't even bother with the wolf pelts so I couldn't care less if there's a wolf carcass at the summit.

There are hardcore people who already find Interloper too easy so they summit TWM on Day 2 for the distress pistol and kill 2 bears the next day to speed craft the bearskin coat. This just proves that the summit loot doesn't need a buff, it's perfectly fine as it is and definitely worth it to get there for some people.

1 hour ago, ThePhoenics said:

I tried interloper and I have so much respect for those that can handle it, but the major off putting part for me was that the firearms don't even spawn among other things, I love the super tough survival but I want access to all the tools and skills available, so I play stalker. going for 250 days right now (160/250 so far), then on to 500 next.

Trust me, I had the same perception until I became serious about getting into Loper recently. It's a different game in the first 50 days, can be abit too linear for those who like ready made tools and weapons. Well, you still get most of the tools, just have to forge the knife and hatchet which is in fact not a difficult task once you find a hammer.

Now I don't think I can handle the huge amount of loot in lower difficulties anymore. Never been so happy to find the second pair of thermal underwear on Loper in all my hours of TLD.