Rover East

Realistic

Goodness, pardon my typos. If anyone wants clarification let me know.

Having played the game for quite a few years now, I have found the most engaging, enduring aspect to be the realistic, engaging survival mechanics. How hunting, scavenging, cooking, staying warm, mending, making cloths, and all the other little things you do to stay alive interconnect is grand. given so, there are a few additions that would make me very happy the first would be, once you have maxed out your sharpening skill, the ability to either use stones to sharpen or midigate the damage inflicted on wet stones. As it stand even a fantastic sharpener has to have a wet stone which gets ground to a pulp after just a few tune ups. Another addition that I would like to see would be a flintlock rifle. I image it acting as a late late game item. It would be interesting if you had to make it yourself from pieces scattered across Desilation point, Ash Canyon, Hushed River Valley, Broken railroad, Timberwolf Mountain, ravine, and Pleasant Valley. You would have to assemble it at the gun bench in bleak inlet. You could also forge musket balls and craft powder bags from deer skins. This would give late game players an extrinsic reason to explore after ascertaining all the traditional goods needed to survive. Additionally, it would add a fun late game mechanic that could tie in well with new wildlife. If per say a few small hard to catch animals like foxes, geese, or snow hairs were added to make exclusive clothing items like fur drawers, scarfs etc the flintlock could be used to target them with craftable pepper shot (an alternate load for the same gun) or, for larger game, regular slugs. Perhaps adding such a device to interloper would permit players to get all five skills to the max, give an additional challenge, and not compromise on the difficulty and mood of interloper as the gun and ammo has to be crafted an is archaic in design. Finally I would like a firewood overhaul. It takes a horribly unrealistic amount of time to cut branches into logs. The current system makes collecting logs impractical, dangerous, and unrewarding. It is better to just horde sticks and coal unless you want to set off several days to saw or chop wood safely. I think a better system would be to have easy to harvest wood, but greater disparity in the quality of the wood. Everyone knows soft, sappy wood like pine burn long but cold whilst dry hardwood leaps to life but doesn’t endure as long. Adding in rarer wood like birch and fatligter could motivate people to be strategic about wood gathering maybe even taking journeys to furnish their settlements with good supplies. this cure go well with a smoking system. Before a journey, you could smoke some meat to give it longevity and resume sent, and to smoke it effectively you would need a sheltered location with long burning pine; the temperature wouldn’t matter because it’s not for warmth. In tandem with this, a wood stacking mechanic would be great. It would be a cool sight to wander home to fresh food and a crisp stack of firewood. Two more small things: A horn for carrying coals that last a day or two to save matches even in bad weather. This would be really great on journeys; perhaps you get burned though if a wolf or bear mauls you. Additional tracking mechanics. More signs of animals and longer rendering tracks.

I have always found “The Will to Live” achievement alluring. The idea of surviving for in game years, having to plan months ahead, and inevitably leaving your mark on nearly every crevice and corner of Great Bear have the makings of a great survival story. However, on the lower difficulties the monument of this achievement is somewhat diminished on behalf of the plethora of supplies, tools, and weapons available. I personally found that by day 150 or so on stalker their was very little reason to do anything and few external threats on account of my gear and supply reserves. To amend this, I tried my next run on Interloper and found it breathed new life both into the challenge and the game. Sure, at a certain point it was physically possible to shack up somewhere, make a stockpile, and grind down time; however I found the utter scarcity of manufactured goods and the gradual diminishment of both equipment and natural resources promoted a more demanding lifestyle and required continual self assessment and evaluation to continue surviving. Additionally the cold continues to pose a threat even with full skin clothing and the bearskin sleeping bag. I personally call surviving to day 500 on Interloper “The Iron Will to live challenge” and I was wondering if anyone else was trying it. If you are, share a story or two, discuss tactics, and let me know if you think they should make an official achievement honoring such endeavors.