about the current state of Stalker

Those who know me know that I love this game dearly. I wasn't around the past three months because TLD and everything that followed changed my life in quite an unexpected direction. Instead of gaming I rather go outside now with my brother in law, canoeing the rivers in Europe, go fishing with my kids, spending much more time outside than ever. But he's on vaccation with my sister so I have time to come back to the game that started it all.

At first I was amazed by everything new and still am to some point. But I'm already reaching day 100 again and now my impression is a bit more informed. And frankly I must say I am quite shocked to see what Stalker has become because of two reasons: short respawn times of animals and loot in abundance everywhere.

The first issue mentioned became very appaerent to me yesterday. After spending some hours in PV I'd go so far to say that this even is an exploit, at the very least it shows how easy this short respawn times can be exploited. Killed a bear right outside the porch of the Farmstead, got 30KG of meat, slept for a week to get hides & stuff cured. Woke, got out, shot a bear right outside the porch, slept for a week and... left the poor guy wander around because I just couldn't continue this mindless cicle.

But as for now the LB have to be considered completely rigged, if ones aim is to simply shoot for a high place, gather 40-50 bullets, get a six pack of beer from the fridge or a sack of weed, whatever your poison is and reach 800 days easily. You can do this all naked and probably even without a knife or hatched because your condition dropping near 0 while harvesting doesn't matter either, you are going to sleep for a whole week again. This is by far the easiest exploit that has ever been in this game, way easier (and faster) than hybernation because the bear can't reach you on the porch but he strolls close enough for a headshot. Each bullet gives you 15 days of meat.

Second, after exploring about 60% of ML, the way through Carter's River and about 25% of PV I have 3 Rifles, 40 bullets, 10 arrowa, 4 bed rolls, about 6 or 7 knifes, that many hatchets, all cloths (most crafted) in mint condition, around a dozen Simple and Quality Tools, a ton of scrap metal and cloth :roll:

Is this really what the devs have in mind for this game? I thought you're supposed to use your brain and actually feel like you are surviving but all that is gone. I understand that only 15% of all players play on Stalker, Raph never tires to say so in an interview. But do you also have statistics on how many of those 15% want to have an easy peasy cake walk while playing Stalker and how many really play it for the challenge and the survival experience?

Keep the low respawn times on Voyageur, I have no problem with that. But Stalker surely does not feel anymore like Stalker, there's just way too much free stuff to gather and way WAY too many game to hunt. If this is supposed to be Stalker I kindly ask the Devs for an Ultra Stalker mode with settings around v200, especially in PV. I got so tired yesterday of PV that I left for CH to go bow hunting and artificially make the game more challenging for me, next I might rip off my clothes and hunt with a knife just to make it more interesting. But seriously I most probably just won't continue to play for a while, because the game looses it's appeal, I no longer feel like a survivor but more like a gamer. Which is a pity, if I want to play a survival game I can launch Dying Light but the promise I've got from TLD was to be as close in a survival situation as possible without daring to seek for it in RL. It never felt like "playing a game" to me but more like an alternate reality. It hurts to see that those days seem to be over... :cry:

So please, please... 15% out of how many, 250k, 300k sold copies(?) are still around 30-40'000 players, there are not many soccer stadiums you can fill in that many people. Don't ignore the ones who seek from the game what it initially promised, a true survival experience. Because if this continues in the direction it is right now, this promise gets broken.

Yours sincerely... yada yada

TL;DR: please add Ultra Stalker :twisted:

+1 +1 +1 !!!!

I completely support ChillPlayer`s statement and I 1000000000% agree with every word written here.

I am in love with this game as well,but it is really not a challenge anymore.I am at day 170 on Stalker mode and I explored CH map and 75% of ML map,also found a tool bunker at ML map.I have 40 bullets,3 rifles,6 knives and hatchets and 8 simple tools+ 1 quality tools.In that tool bunker there are 3 simple tools and 2 quality tools as well!! I didn`t touch that bunker at all.And I don`t even hunt bears,as I have already too much meat from wolves,deers and rabbits.I have 3 bedrolls,so I am not in need to make bear bedroll.

Seriously...when I discovered bunker and went inside,I really had to check if I maybe made mistake and started playing Voyageur mode.

Bows&arrows,new crouching and sneaking mechanics as well some other changes made way, way too easy Stalker mode.You have problem with passing trough wolves infesting area? No problem! get practice with bow and then just kill em all! :twisted: There is at least 20 birch sapplings in every map.Each birch gives 3 arrow shafts,which makes at least 60 arrows.And each arrow can be refund and reused at least 5 times.That means 300 shoots!! Just from one map.Who would care then for arrows? And not to mention at least 25 bullets from each map.

I know now No.1 priority is story mode of this great game and I am so much excited to see it happen.That`s why i can accept these changes in sandbox and live with that,as story mode is still more important.But,please...PLEASE(!!!),after you will start releasing story mode and everything will come into routine work,so you would be able to divide your team into two groups,one of which will work on story mode and other on sandbox developement...make Stalker mode again challenging.Or,as ChillPlayer suggested,add kind of Ultra Stalker mode.

Let me repeat once more: I am truly in love with this game and is first one I ever decided to spend some money on it,as it is more than worth of.But,I really wish that you keep offer reall survival,not gaming,like ChillPlayer said.

I hope our voice will be heared and listened.

Sounds like you've had quite the adventure the past few months! Thanks for returning and sharing your thoughts with us. I don't want to go into too many details just yet, but I do understand many of the points you addressed in your post. That being said, I will absolutely pass this along. I can't say if or when things will change, but I want to make sure you know that we hear you guys when you share feedback like this. Thanks again!

Thank you bethany for your comforting words. I truly hope that the devs have some more additions planned so everything will make sense in the end. But right now the question I read most during my streams is: is this guy only sleeping and eating? It's not that I want to do this, but what am I supposed todo when I already have 40KG of meat in my fridge?

I love the thrill of the hunt, I love bear hunting too and I really don't like skipping this part of the game just to make it more interesting. But I do some wolf/deer hunting and very rarely bear hunting now, it's just too much meat and I don't want to spend my rare game time staring mostly on a black screen, neither do the viewers of my stream. I try to spice it up for me and them but it's really hard todo so when the game hands you everything you need on a silver platter all the time. Not once was I trapped by a blizzard so far since I started playing again, simply because I don't need to venture far from my camp. The game offered such epic moments, pinned in a hunter's blind by two bears while a blizzard was going, condition dropping down to 20% until I've gathered all my courage and ran down the hill, warmed myself by a fire on the side of the road and survived at 2%... I hope we will experience such moments again

[EDIT]: btw - this is what I'm talking about when I speak about epic moments, I don't see such stuff happening in the current state because there's just no need to take such risks anymore:

[bBvideo 560,340:3ummrb1p]

Count me in as third supporter of every single word the OP wrote.

Thank you for your response Bethany, now I've at least regained some hope that hoping for an increased prey scarcity isn't futile in general.^^

While it's not a surprise to anyone that the game isn't balanced properly I cannot agree with OP.

Maybe I don't have enough knowledge about the game but I am not so sure that spawn times for example are the problem.

I would say that, maybe, killing the animals is the problem, hence their AI, and even general game design is at fault, not how often they spawn. Even if Hinterland addresses the spawn times, if you will still be able to shoot a bear, go inside, sleep a bit, come out, and see if it died, then I fail to see how you can point the finger at the spawn times because what you’re doing isn't the stalker experience either, cower inside or do it from a hunting blind, the porch, a cliff, whatever. You know you are exploiting game design, so what, exactly, is the issue, it’s like a speedrunner complaining the game is too short.

I am not targeting anyone in particular, it’s just that this is what most players I have watched playing the game, stalker or not, do. Before I bought the game even, I was watching let’s plays on YT and that’s what the players did, exploit game mechanics to a certain degree.

From the “realistic” dropping used flares to mark trails to the less realistic making a trail of bottles. So if you negate bad weather and getting lost by exploiting game design, or by simply knowing the maps like the back of your hand, and thus rejecting part of the experience, just because you can, and because doing good at the game is rewarding, at least, for a little while, what experience are you talking about then, can you be sure you are experiencing the same game even?

No, obviously not. New players are not experiencing the same game, because they haven’t learned how to exploit game mechanics yet. Wolves are a major issue for some. So between wolves charging at you, a major hassle for some new players, and bears charging at your porch, because it’s on their spawn/patrol route, maybe the game shouldn’t be so willing to push wildlife towards you, instead of seeing the spawn times as an issue.

I’ve said it in the past, Hinterland has a lot to learn from Team Silent. I didn’t mean this in an offensive way, and I still don’t. They must have their mentors in the field, people, studios or games they look up to, even the chameleon Bethesda, I mean places in the game feel like winter in Fallout.

That’s not a bad thing, it’s probably better that we can see where their hearts are, and I like Fallout too, I have put an unhealthy amount of hours in it. But while it is obvious someone at Hinterland likes Fallout, I don’t think TLD manages to get that je ne sais quoi, and I think it never will or can, that’s simply a function of the writing, setting and context. It doesn’t even have to, gameplay is more important, but what gameplay does TLD have that’s unique?

Back to Team Silent, one of the reasons the golden, only worth mentioning Silent Hills – one through four, with the best a wash between two and three – were and are what they are – your opinion if something good or bad – is because of the passive-aggressive opposition. Except bosses, monsters really did not care that much about you, and the great thing is, it made sense story-wise.

This might be me being prejudiced, but you can really feel the different culture at work, even though it would probably be hard to say, Japan, if you didn’t know who made it, it’s clear Silent Hill is different, not because of each facet of it in a vacuum but rather when taken as a whole, the way it’s put together, it’s different, kind of like tamagoyaki, which is basically omelette. But a different geometry than your “usual” omelette, so the texture is different; eggs, rice vinegar, and sugar, not 100% it, but one of the simplest ways you can at least “get the idea”.

So while you have eaten all ingredients before on their own, it’s the combination you would have never made yourself, waking up one morning, saying to yourself, I’m going to make breakfast, but today my omelette needs rice vinegar and sugar, a touch of acid and a touch of sweet.

And I don’t taste TLD, as of .244, cooking something different in this particular sense. Individual, minute implementations of game mechanics, splayed out on a table, may or may not be different than other games, but, as a whole, it doesn’t taste interesting. The issue is not if you would get the idea but if you had the ingredients, money. For, what, say 10 million $, could you make TLD. Probably yes, in the sense that the mix of ingredients isn’t something, I feel, unexpected and familiar at the same time, something unique, at least not for my taste buds.

So instead of anyone taking offense about this, if the recipe doesn’t taste all that good, before anything else maybe some ingredients have no place in it to begin with, and should simply be removed. I haven’t been around for longer than two months, so I’m curious, when was the last time something was removed from the game because it didn’t work, not tweaked, removed?

Crow flight patterns as precursors of weather changes is, no offense, a design dud. It gives you a way to circumvent a part of the game, and players that know about it explain this to players that don’t. Because, I presume, before this bad weather trapped players in the open and made them have a bad time. Then they complained, then crows announce bad weather, then some don’t see it, then someone explains it to them, then they can avoid it. To the effect of nobody really caring about the weather all that much. And even if you miss it, you’ll have your man-made trail to guide you to safety. So why have bad weather at all? Just as a time-out? Bad weather happened, it’s not really putting me in danger, but now I have to wait for it to pass. Maybe, melt some snow to extend my bottle trail for the next time bad weather happens.

Which is why I’m not that quick to point fingers, it’s the spawn times, or it’s the AI, or the whatever. I don’t think it’s that easy, if it was, they would have simply done it by now. If it was clear from the start, they needed to implement everything once, and the game would become more balanced as game mechanics would be added, while changing nothing, until they complete the game, everything working together as intended, because they figured it out from the start.

But this is not the case, we don’t know, they don’t know, and back to the issue at hand, changing the spawn times doesn't fix the issue of exploiting game mechanics, whenever the bear will spawn, it will still be free meat. None of the above mentioned techniques – going inside or, in a general sense, where the bear can’t reach you – are required, you can do it in the open, the bear comes towards you to eat you, you don’t even have to move, just go to the place, wait, and apply bullet to the face. Or shoot an arrow from half-way across the map.

Even in a Bingo race, under the most tension I’ve probably ever been playing TLD, even then I could do it. Right, let’s take a detour, see if the bear is here. It is. Bang. Deaded – Lytha, where are you now – by bullet to the face. All I had to do was to wait for the right time to click a button. So in essence it’s a QTE without a prompt.

The game world is small, and Hinterland decided for the world to be wide instead of tall, so it really does feel small. But, more to the point, items do not respawn. Maybe they will, indirectly, by way of AIs. But, until then, if you lower the number of items on stalker, all you’re doing is lowering the maximum possible survival time.

Even if the beginning of the game changes, and you have to scramble for resources, nothing really changes as far as I’m concerned, after you do scramble it will all turn to plod, just like now, all you’re doing is postponing it.

Going the difficulty route is, I think, not a good thing to do if you want to evaluate the game. I don’t think difficulty is really an issue and all it does is add more confusion to the discussion. The problem is, regardless of difficulty, you know what you have to do, and you do it, or fail at doing it.

If you need meat, you have to hunt, so you go hunting, and you’re successful or not. You know how the AI behaves, you now the places to hunt, you know everything, it’s only a matter of doing what you know needs doing. And in the unlikely event you’re not successful and die, you can clearly see your mistake, the causal link is extremely short.

Wolves are a problem? It’s because of x. Do y and they won’t be a problem anymore. The only thing that’s uncertain is your ability, the game is never unpredictable, and given an input you always know what the output will be.

To the extent some players have the game down pat, how many calories does it take to move your butt from location A to location B, kill a wolf and a deer, harvest them, the chance of being attacked on the way back to your base, how many days you will survive on the spoils, and so on, and so on, and so on.

For a game some hype as having thousands of variables in the code - as if that's good, just look how "easy" it is to balance, but then again I'm not a developer - it does an amazing job of at least giving the you option to play as if by a code, a machine running the machine.

There is no seat of the pants, visceral, groin area intuition about the game, at all. Just numbers, a robot from the future managing numbers and bars on a heads-up display. Pure, cold, efficient, utilitarian survival of the machine, because that’s the prime directive, survive. And if you can’t, somebody will give you the lines of code to do so, here’s what you need to do, how you need to do it, and when.

Just because a bear takes longer to spawn so you wait more time until you shoot it and run away inside, or shoot it from across the map, or because the number of matches gets tweaked, doesn’t mean, in my opinion, that the recipe is fixed, all you’re doing is trying to make eggs, cucumbers, chocolate and squid a better omelette by adjusting the quantity of each ingredient.

And as far as Steam is concerned, out of 100% of owners, 89% have played the game at least once, 27% made it past day one, 9% played the game in the last two weeks. So right there all numbers, their meanings and relevance, at least those available to us, are lost. Because you’re talking about the 15% that play on stalker, of the 9% of active players, of the 89% that actually ever played the game at least once, which amounts to what, 0.01%.

Not saying those opinions don’t matter, they do, because every opinion is representative for a % of the player base, regardless of the opinion, nobody’s unique. But at the same time, 0.01% is way within the statistical error margin. From a purely statistical point of view, we may not even exist.

The addition of NPCs to Stalker could easily restore the challenge, depending on how that is handled. For all we know, the addition of everything else so far is leading up to that point. I'm just speculating, of course, but we should bear in mind that more will be revealed, my friends.

Yes though from what I understand, NPCs will only be in story mode, not in sandbox. But animal respawn times wouldn't matter much anymore if they would add something like a vitamine system I've proposed long ago here:

Day 125 Suggestions

I'm again sleep/eating in the farmstead, killed three bears in three weeks on the porch. I thought I still need 4 bear skins for the bedroll which is why I took the lazy way, upping my days survived as a nice addon. But the vitamin idea keeps reoccuring, I am more convinced than ever that the game needs something like this if sleep/eating for weeks ever should be fixed.

But then, the devs showed many times how creative they are, maybe they come up with a better system (as long as they come up with something to fix this :mrgreen: )

I completely agree with ChillPlayer.

Someone has rightly called the bears "calorie bombs" (can't remember who it was), and collecting them at your doorstep somehow throws the game - at least on stalker - out of balance.

I recall that bears were first introduced on the PV map exclusively, and only in remote areas. That was when they worked best. You had to venture out away from shelter and into dangerous territory to hunt a bear, and then you had a lot of rapidly-decaying meat on your hands in the middle of the wilderness, which often forced you to cook it there and transfer it to your base in several runs later. All this provided for risk and excitement. Wolves could interfere, but above all the weather could change and force you to improvise in the wilderness. That was when the game had its best moments.

I think it was a mistake to introduce bears to CH and ML. Maybe those maps are too small for bears to "work". And it definitely was a mistake to move bears close to buildings of any sort. I would vote for reducing bears to remote areas of PV again. Also think about the hunting blinds - originally, they actually served as protection against the bears and had an in-game use. Now they are just redundant. That's a shame.

Currently, TLD in sandbox mode is a game of waiting it out, while it should really be a game of taking risks to achieve survival. The fact that it's still great as it is only shows how great it could be.

Well, we'll see. It's still in development, and I am curious to see where the devs will be going from here. I have a feeling that we will be seeing new features soon, and then everything might need balancing out again, anyway.

Just because a bear takes longer to spawn so you wait more time until you shoot it and run away inside, or shoot it from across the map, or because the number of matches gets tweaked, doesn’t mean, in my opinion, that the recipe is fixed, all you’re doing is trying to make eggs, cucumbers, chocolate and squid a better omelette by adjusting the quantity of each ingredient.

If the respawn times are strechted enough, it will change a lot.

If a bear took 1 month to respawn, seeing a bear appear at the PV homestead would turn into a singular event for most players, because most players don't survive long enough to see a second one.

Also, if the respawn time is longer than the time you could possibly survive on the calories you just "collected" you will have to rely on other methods for sustaining yourself. Which could force you to leave your shelter and expose yourself to bad weather, animals and fatigue.

BTW, bad weather is only irrelevant if you can afford to avoid it. If you actually need to find food, water, materials, etc. before the storm passes, it doesn't matter that you know how to predict bad weather and how to avoid it.

So IMO crowding the place with animals, that are - more or less - easy to kill and also provide you with most of the materials you need, is actually changing the game a lot.

It's more shooting fish in a barrel than hunting for your survival.

If the respawn times are strechted enough, it will change a lot.

If a bear took 1 month to respawn, seeing a bear appear at the PV homestead would turn into a singular event for most players, because most players don't survive long enough to see a second one.

So instead of making bear AI less vulnerable, you make it such that you abuse them once a month. After that you go abuse something else.

BTW, bad weather is only irrelevant if you can afford to avoid it. If you actually need to find food, water, materials, etc. before the storm passes, it doesn't matter that you know how to predict bad weather and how to avoid it.

Yes, if bad weather lasted days or weeks instead of hours, but it was their decision for the player to experience all weather patterns in the shortest possible amount of time, for whatever reason, and finding resources now instead of a few hours later is never an issue.

If you can't afford to avoid bad weather, crows announcing bad weather doesn't matter, you say this, because you have to be out to search for resources, even if I don’t agree this happens.

If you can afford to avoid bad weather, bad weather is irrelevant, and crows announcing bad weather takes away even the slightest chance of being surprised and the game catching you off guard.

If the respawn times are strechted enough, it will change a lot.

If a bear took 1 month to respawn, seeing a bear appear at the PV homestead would turn into a singular event for most players, because most players don't survive long enough to see a second one.

So instead of making bear AI less vulnerable, you make it such that you abuse them once a month. After that you go abuse something else.

The very best results could be achieved by combining both ideas. Primarily, a longer respawn timer and secondly, changed spawn points and patrolling routes. (The latter combined with a less emphasized "follow the player" mechanic, of course.)

The original bear spawn points and patrolling routes in Pleasant valley were quite well-chosen to enable challenging bear-hunts as very few inhabitable structures were close to locations from which you could shoot the bears (one hunter's blind near pensive pond and maybe the coastal town).

ML and CH also have such remote regions (e.g. the region between Carter Hydro Dam and Mystery lake or the area south-east of Bear Creek Campground), albeit less of course. Limiting bear spawns to them would be a first step to adress the problem.

The very best results could be achieved by combining both ideas. Primarily, a longer respawn timer and secondly, changed spawn points and patrolling routes. (The latter combined with a less emphasized "follow the player" mechanic, of course.)

I think the emphasis should be on the AI, make it passive-aggressive, with animals turning antagonistic only in rare occasions, like being cornered.

All areas of all maps have places where you can abuse the AI. I think the one everyone knows about is the rock ledge overlooking derailment, very easy to reach, every wolf patrolling below will become aggravated and try to reach you, to the effect of having three wolves on top of each other above you running in place, ready for arrow to the face.

But even in the open, killing wolves or bears is not an issue and doesn't require particular skill.

If nothing else, stalker would be better if it had pilgrim AI with the range at which animals flee from you increased and stalker item balance. This way, not only resources are limited, but animals run away from you when they see you, making it harder to get anything, and putting emphasis on the under-used sneak mechanic, instead of throwing meat guts and hides at the player.

Even the decoy mechanic is arguably irrational, it makes no sense to dodge three wolves by pressing a key three times, them just standing there, nibbling, confused about life, it’s a bit senseless and not fun.

I think the emphasis should be on the AI, make it passive-aggressive, with animals turning antagonistic only in rare occasions, like being cornered.

All areas of all maps have places where you can abuse the AI. I think the one everyone knows about is the rock ledge overlooking derailment, very easy to reach, every wolf patrolling below will become aggravated and try to reach you, to the effect of having three wolves on top of each other above you running in place, ready for arrow to the face.

But even in the open, killing wolves or bears is not an issue and doesn't require particular skill.

If nothing else, stalker would be better if it had pilgrim AI with the range at which animals flee from you increased and stalker item balance. This way, not only resources are limited, but animals run away from you when they see you, making it harder to get anything, and putting emphasis on the under-used sneak mechanic, instead of throwing meat guts and hides at the player.

Even the decoy mechanic is arguably irrational, it makes no sense to dodge three wolves by pressing a key three times, them just standing there, nibbling, confused about life, it’s a bit senseless and not fun.

I just want to ask you one thing...Is there any way to watch you playing the game? Are you doing any streams,twitches,LP`s on YouTube? I would really,really like to watch you playing game.

Untill now I was able to see only bounch of words from you,and no action.So,if you are that kind to link me(us),so I(we) could see your words in action?

And,btw...not everything in game is abuse.Sometimes in battle for survival,person must use all advantages,which life and nature offers him.Simply to survive.What concerns game,some mechanics really are very abusive,other mechanics are just clever way to use advantage of it.

Howk!Denyo has spoken!

@Octavian: I guess you didn't play the game pre v211 as I see you only registered in Mai. I created this thread because of what has changed since April, the last time I played the game, and how I think it changed for the worse. Scy, Hotzn and Denyo were all playing it then too so they understand where I'm coming from. It's a pity you missed how exciting, awesome and freakishly dangerous it was hunting for bears in PV. I miss this and that's all this thread is about

And just to prove my point once more: I believe it was Saturday when I was at day 60 - today I've got the One with Nature achievement for passing day 200. Before the recent changes this would've taken me a week or two instead of three days.

I just want to ask you one thing...Is there any way to watch you playing the game? Are you doing any streams,twitches,LP`s on YouTube? I would really,really like to watch you playing game.

Untill now I was able to see only bounch of words from you,and no action.So,if you are that kind to link me(us),so I(we) could see your words in action?

No, I wasn't aware it was required. What in particular from what I've said you have a hard time believing? The fact that the ledge above derailment exits and that, indeed, you can cheese the AI?

Not sure why the coordinates are blurred in your (octavian) photo? Information like that is pretty helpful to us in trying to fix the errors you're pointing out. If this isn't a bug you've already reported, I'd appreciate you doing so. [Thanks for updating]

Please also (to all) remember to keep debates friendly. It's easy to sound like we're talking down to each other a bit when tone and direction all have to be implied through text from a stranger you've never met.

Not sure why the coordinates are blurred in your (octavian) photo? Information like that is pretty helpful to us in trying to fix the errors you're pointing out. If this isn't a bug you've already reported, I'd appreciate you doing so.

Indeed they were, thanks for pointing it out, I have fixed it, I must have dragged and dropped the image on the wrong script, I made it a while back when people were asking for confirmation of saplings without spoiling the location.

Too much predators and it has a double effect: some players find team wolf attacks very unfair and high wolf density definitely makes things difficult. At the same time, those who master the game find too many wolves means too much food and not enough challenge.

I think as in real life, it's reasonable that the predator density is relatively low and if you kill one, he stays away for a good long while, thus making life easier. On ML, the relative high density of wolves is problematic; larger maps have a lower density so the problem of multiple wolf attacks is much less.

I really think that relying on player feedback is not always reliable; that's why I'd like to see the game collect more statistics on mortalities (map loc'n, cause, days, other equipment, shortages etc)

Concerning the use of "tricks" and whether these might be considered "cheating". The player must learn to find his/her own techniques to safely harvest game. Staying in a blind (yes please add this) may seem unfair to some but then facing a bear on its own terms is not fair at all; the bear almost always wins that encounter. There are lots of traps that can kill you as you push the envelope, hunting or harvesting at dusk for example makes you wolf bait!

Staying in a blind (yes please add this)

that's already there since I play the game

Wolf density didn't increase as far as I can tell, there are the usual spots with 3-4 wolves plus now maybe a bear and those areas didn't get easier or significantly harder. As you said, once you learn to deal with them, they become prey and not predators. And that's the problem, because you kill a bear and a week later he get's respawned again with another 30kg of 900kcal meat. Too much prey, too much loot.

I went today on day 240 back to ML and camped in the dam. Decided to go hunt for the bear on the lake and didn't manage to one-shot kill him. What followed though reminded me alot of the good old days, while trying to harvest him from around Alan's Cave I had to deal with 3 or 4 wolves, many blizzards (was freezing for the first time in 200 days while harvesting lol) and just quite intense 2 days that it took me to get all the meat to the dam.

Bottom line is, Denyo and I agree that ML in the current state of stalker is by far the hardest map. If you are looking for a good intense time, go bear hunting in ML, big fun

I went today on day 240 back to ML and camped in the dam. Decided to go hunt for the bear on the lake and didn't manage to one-shot kill him. What followed though reminded me alot of the good old days, while trying to harvest him from around Alan's Cave I had to deal with 3 or 4 wolves, many blizzards (was freezing for the first time in 200 days while harvesting lol) and just quite intense 2 days that it took me to get all the meat to the dam.

Bottom line is, Denyo and I agree that ML in the current state of stalker is by far the hardest map. If you are looking for a good intense time, go bear hunting in ML, big fun

Indeed,my frend. Today`s watching you really reminded on good old days.I feel nostalgy many times for those times and I hope they will return someday.

short respawn times of animals and loot in abundance everywhere.

I agree with this. For those of you who don't know, I am currently and have been for about 3 months, the #1 ranked Stalker player on the leaderboards. For anyone that is in doubt as to how incredibly easy Stalker mode is and has progressively become, let me offer you some interesting perspective from my run.

I survived 2500 days on Mystery Lake alone. That is to say, Coastal Highway, Pleasant Valley and the transition zones were 100% untouched for all of that time. I was out of bullets, food and metal, BUT I still had 50-100 gut (getting harder to recall the exact details after 3 months). This means I could have survived however many more days by trapping rabbits. Even without metal, because you can harvest meat without any tools until the carcass is 50%+ frozen. And on top of that, I had long ago stopped harvesting guts from deer and wolf, because it was just getting to be ridiculous how many guts I had. So I could have had much more to work with even still.

I decided to move to Coastal Highway in attempt to shake things up and make it interesting again. I looted the Ravine and settled into a nice house near the Gas Station. After about 100 days there, I carelessly died in my sleep while out on a hunting trip, away from home. I slept naked in a trailer, without considering the difference in air temperature in a trailer as opposed to a house or any of the other common places to set up a base. Complacency and boredom got me in the end.

Now, as you can see from my personal experience, the maximum possible survival time is quite staggering. I feel it's very safe to assume that 10,000 days is absolutely achievable. Some of us even think that infinite survival is possible, although the methods to achieve this are extremely tedious and boring, to the point of being painful. Pleasant Valley in particular is an especially easy map to play on, and possible survival times there are absurdly long.

The problem is definitely a massive abundance of loot and the game is only heading in the direction of becoming easier with every update. I did my leaderboard run before the addition of the bow and the transition area between ML and PV. Both are great and add to the enjoyment of the game, but in terms of survival time, they are only extending it further. Every new map or resource that adds new ways to acquire food or loot in the game, is only making Stalker mode even easier. I absolutely love the game, but it is definitely becoming less and less challenging and therefore less interesting to play. I'm looking forward to future changes and updates as always, and at the very least I'll still be in for story mode. I really do hope something will done with the sandbox to make it more difficult though.

I agree with this. For those of you who don't know, I am currently and have been for about 3 months, the #1 ranked Stalker player on the leaderboards. For anyone that is in doubt as to how incredibly easy Stalker mode is and has progressively become, let me offer you some interesting perspective from my run.

I survived 2500 days on Mystery Lake alone. That is to say, Coastal Highway, Pleasant Valley and the transition zones were 100% untouched for all of that time. I was out of bullets, food and metal, BUT I still had 50-100 gut (getting harder to recall the exact details after 3 months). This means I could have survived however many more days by trapping rabbits. Even without metal, because you can harvest meat without any tools until the carcass is 50%+ frozen. And on top of that, I had long ago stopped harvesting guts from deer and wolf, because it was just getting to be ridiculous how many guts I had. So I could have had much more to work with even still.

I decided to move to Coastal Highway in attempt to shake things up and make it interesting again. I looted the Ravine and settled into a nice house near the Gas Station. After about 100 days there, I carelessly died in my sleep while out on a hunting trip, away from home. I slept naked in a trailer, without considering the difference in air temperature in a trailer as opposed to a house or any of the other common places to set up a base. Complacency and boredom got me in the end.

Now, as you can see from my personal experience, the maximum possible survival time is quite staggering. I feel it's very safe to assume that 10,000 days is absolutely achievable. Some of us even think that infinite survival is possible, although the methods to achieve this are extremely tedious and boring, to the point of being painful. Pleasant Valley in particular is an especially easy map to play on, and possible survival times there are absurdly long.

The problem is definitely a massive abundance of loot and the game is only heading in the direction of becoming easier with every update. I did my leaderboard run before the addition of the bow and the transition area between ML and PV. Both are great and add to the enjoyment of the game, but in terms of survival time, they are only extending it further. Every new map or resource that adds new ways to acquire food or loot in the game, is only making Stalker mode even easier. I absolutely love the game, but it is definitely becoming less and less challenging and therefore less interesting to play. I'm looking forward to future changes and updates as always, and at the very least I'll still be in for story mode. I really do hope something will done with the sandbox to make it more difficult though.

I will only assume( and not claim!!),that your long term survival achievement was made with method of hibernation.In that case,if that so,your oppinion is adopted,but no relevant.Here we talk about abundant resources and easy game for actual active playing,with outdoor and indoor activities

And...well...something will be done,that is for sure. Devs will make very,very hard to reach your achievement of long term of survival and hibernation as well some other clear abuses of game mechanics will be removed.I hope that will happen soon,so we will have again pure challenge of survival. And then you will be only dreaming about 10,000 days of survival. :lol: :lol: