Self (or How I Learned to Stop Quibbling and Love Sleeping)

I have just been having the best experience yet in this environment and wanted to share it.

Background: I bought in about a month ago and after playing around with Voyager moved on to Stalker because resources seemed to plentiful and avoiding wolves was easy. Started quite a few sessions but never played past 50 days cuz by then the game just seemed to be about sleeping and eating and I didn't think I needed a simulator for that. Starting to get bored I decided to prove, at least to myself, that one could survive for eternity. I'll post that separately, if at all. Bottom line: I don't recommend it, its a miserable existence.

So there I was needing to extract some fun. How to do this? Why not get all the remaining achievements unlocked. In one session. In Stalker. The list:

Pacifist

Silent hunter

Live off the land

Happy Harvester

Centurion

One With Nature

The Method: I will not run around. I will gather what I find in a day, return to a home where I will hole up until it is consumed before venturing out again. And I will use the sleep mechanic to my advantage.

I spawned near the railroad tracks near Mystery Lake and found the Camp Office first night. Ransacked lake cabins the following day. Ate and slept for 9 days on candy bars and sardines. 10th day I went out scrounging for Cattails. Found a wolf eating a deer and ran him off with flare. Harvested said deer then ate and slept for 8 more days. My original boots were starting to wear thin now so I made some torches, chased a deer into a wolf, ran the wolf off the downed deer with a torch, harvested, ate, slept, made deerskin boots. Pacifist achievement unlocked. I was having a ball and I'd never even left the lakeshore.

Set out now to find the Trapper's Cabin and maybe trap some rabbits. Also, to harvest same maple saplings I'd seen before I had a hatchet. Found it and them. Lived for 8 days off two deer carcasses I'd found in the woods. Trapped some bunnies, lived 8 more days, Live of the land achieved.

Found birch sprigs nearby. Now I have a bow and can hunt when needed. Am up to 60 days survived and I haven't journeyed any further. Don't see any reason to yet. Having a great survival right here. Eliminating the constant exploring and accumulation of good has made all the difference. Shift your paradigm. Embrace the passage of time. Embrace sleep.

Make the best of it while it's still possible, glad to hear you're having the best experience yet, but this way of playing the game will be more or less impossible sooner or later as it doesn't quite fit the scope and vision of the game, and in the words of the developers, pretty big changes, end paraphrase, are incoming, to deter or make hibernation impossible, and, perhaps, at length, play styles that favor hibernation.

Found birch sprigs nearby. Now I have a bow and can hunt when needed. Am up to 60 days survived and I haven't journeyed any further. Don't see any reason to yet. Having a great survival right here. Eliminating the constant exploring and accumulation of good has made all the difference. Shift your paradigm. Embrace the passage of time. Embrace sleep.

yes the new (read: post patch 210 or something) Stalker allows for this. Before you would've ran out of ammo, wildlife, sewing kits, matches, knife and hatchet, you'd be spending the nights naked waiting to die.

Pro tip: if you really want to survive forever, camp at Farmstead in PV.

SCNR :twisted:

Make the best of it while it's still possible, glad to hear you're having the best experience yet, but this way of playing the game will be more or less impossible sooner or later as it doesn't quite fit the scope and vision of the game, and in the words of the developers, pretty big changes, end paraphrase, are incoming, to deter or make hibernation impossible, and, perhaps, at length, play styles that favor hibernation.

Sounds like NPCs are coming. Using existing buildings for shelter may not be 100% safe anymore.

Sounds like NPCs are coming. Using existing buildings for shelter may not be 100% safe anymore.

I've been silently observing Hinterland adding chimneys, I'm pretty sure there was a distinct lack of chimneys a few months ago. Presumably, the chimney will smoke if and when you make a fire. It's a warm fuzzy thought, don't make a fire, else the AIs will spot you. Or that you can come back to your favorite interior and see smoke coming out of the chimney, something definitely not your doing. This, would be awesome. Or having your house looted. We'll just have to wait and see.

I think they want to fix the issue where sleeping with all needs met returns health three times faster than being freezing, starving, and dehydrated drains it. [ Can be exploited by sleeping two 12 hour sessions while starving losing 75% health, then eating 700 calories, drinking, then sleeping another 12 hour session to get it all back. 36 hours survival on one steak and some water. ]. More likely fix is you can no longer sleep on an empty stomach.

I don't think they want to make passing time impossible. If sleeping 20 hours a day breaks the game for you, maybe they can make chairs interactive for you and you can spend 10 of those hours reading a book. What else are we to do to consume an entire deer full of calories before it goes bad?

Sounds like NPCs are coming. Using existing buildings for shelter may not be 100% safe anymore.

I've been silently observing Hinterland adding chimneys, I'm pretty sure there was a distinct lack of chimneys a few months ago. Presumably, the chimney will smoke if and when you make a fire. It's a warm fuzzy thought, don't make a fire, else the AIs will spot you. Or that you can come back to your favorite interior and see smoke coming out of the chimney, something definitely not your doing. This, would be awesome. Or having your house looted. We'll just have to wait and see.

Nice...I wasn't paying attention, probably because I was so focused on not dying.

If there is not one already, we need to start a speculation thread on surviving in an NPC populated TLD session.

Celebrated my 100th day by finally venturing as far as the dam and slaying Fluffy (and finding my first rifle). Anyway, I think my original point may be that that resource gathering is fun, but only when those resources are actually needed or challenges exist. By taking the time to expend stored resources before seeking more and limiting myself to certain types and methods of collecting, fun continued.

Enough resources were available nearby that exploring even one map in 100 days was unnecessary. Maybe that's too much availability...

Making resources meaningful made gameplay meaningful. Perhaps there are other ways to expend found resources besides daily consumption and rust...

I am somewhat glad to read that also new players are experiencing the same I tried to state in this thread:

http://hinterlandforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=6355

Getting what you need to survive is no longer a challenge and therefor the game is not a big challenge anymore

Btw, yesterday I went from day 60 to day 140 on Stalker in about 5 hours realtime. I turned off my stream though because I feared I will bore to death my viewers lol.

Sounds like NPCs are coming. Using existing buildings for shelter may not be 100% safe anymore.

I've been silently observing Hinterland adding chimneys, I'm pretty sure there was a distinct lack of chimneys a few months ago. Presumably, the chimney will smoke if and when you make a fire. It's a warm fuzzy thought, don't make a fire, else the AIs will spot you. Or that you can come back to your favorite interior and see smoke coming out of the chimney, something definitely not your doing. This, would be awesome. Or having your house looted. We'll just have to wait and see.

Good observation.

Sometimes there are subtle changes that go by unnoticed as long as they do not affect gameplay. I had this weird moment where I suddenly thought I saw new chimneys. But I didn't pay so much attention to them before, so I was unsure. Lately, I started noticing that some buildings have lamps outside with motion sensors attached (eg the cabin on Jackrabbit Island). Same thing: Since I haven't paid too much attention to them before, I am unsure when they were introduced. Things are usually there for a reason in this game, so I presume the motion sensors will be used at some point. Obviously, they serve to discover someone - or something - approaching the building, be it the player, an NPC or animals. Buildings which hitherto were nothing but shelter from the cold might become places to defend or... "conquer"? Exciting thoughts...

However, there is always the possibility that some features will only be introduced with story mode.

Lately, I started noticing that some buildings have lamps outside with motion sensors attached (eg the cabin on Jackrabbit Island).

Same place where I have silently observed them too :lol:

However, there is always the possibility that some features will only be introduced with story mode.

Yeah, Raph said there will be maps unique to story mode, so game mechanics unique to story mode could also be a thing, a bit unfortunate if you ask me, I wish sandbox had everything, because it's, well, sandbox, but we'll see what comes of it. Five months to go, ish.