discussion Harder difficulty

[stray_cur]

First and second option seem pretty much the same to me... Can't figure why i'd choose one over the other.   Something more challenging is desirable -- that's all I know.

Much fewer (no?) sewing kits, for example, is one very small thing that has pretty significant and interesting impact.  Fewer rifles too (more obvious a thing).

[danicusrex]

On 8/26/2016 at 10:29 AM, Pillock said:

Realism is better, though, if it can be achieved. It allows you to solve your character's problems using your own intuition and common sense, rather than by learning game mechanics, and this is infinitely preferable.

 

This. 100% If all I wanted was a mastery of game mechanics, I'd be playing Dark Souls or something. 

To me the "wilderness survival" angle is the most important part of what drew me to this game. 

[Ruruwawa]

I didn't answer the poll because I feel it's poorly designed.  The choices are designed to tell Hinterland how to "fix" their game.  Instead, why not tell them what's wrong or missing in Stalker mode so they can address it in a way the fits their vision and their business model?  I think a poll that asked Stalker players to "pick the one feature that should be more challenging" would give them a much better picture of both what needs to be added to make stalker "more difficult", as well as how much agreement there is about what needs adjusting.  At least among the Stalker players on these forums (Hinterlands has to consider their wider playerbase too, of course).

I *do* play Stalker most of the time, for the more harsher weather and afflictions.  And I don't care how Wolf-Apocalypse-Extreme mode they make Stalker.  Seriously, go bananas.  I avoid wolves and they don't often factor into my play except as an obstacle to avoid.  Killing wolves doesn't add much to stalker for me, however, and the waste of killing them when I don't need any resources from them makes me enjoy the game less.

What I'd really like is a separate mode with challenging weather and affliction mechanics, plus more realistic predator-to-prey ratios.  I'd play that instead of Stalker.  If they made both prey and predators more rare and I'd be joyous.  THAT is the challenge I'd like to see -- more realistic effort to hunt food.  Maybe it takes days to take down a deer, but it feeds me for longer too.  The occasional megastorm would be great too.

 

[Ruruwawa]

On 8/26/2016 at 8:29 AM, Pillock said:

But I agree that being challenged to stay alive in a hostile environment is where the appeal of this game is for me. And once you get to a point where you don't feel challenged to stay alive anymore - you're just pottering about trying to find interesting things to do or look at - then the whole appeal of playing the game is reduced massively (even if that might be realistic).

In my 750 hours played, I've deleted more than 100 sandboxes.  I often just play until I feel "secure", then I delete and start again.  I have a couple longer runs I keep around for when I feel like puttering, but usually once routine kicks in and my wits are no longer needed, I call it quits for that sandbox.

[Pillock]

I do this too.

But I did die yesterday, just at the point where I was feeling secure, about 30 days in, and considering whether to move on to new maps or start again. Walking home to the PV Radio Hut late one evening after a day's fishing, fog and night descended and I lost my way, ended up surrounded by a group of wolves. No amount of campfires seemed to make them back off far enough for long enough for me to get out of all of them's way at once, and then I ran out of tinder. One of them was bolder than the others and wasn't put off by my torch brandishing. By this time I was cold and had lost condition, and after fighting him off I blacked out on 10% condition and never woke up again.

I hadn't played for a while before this, and I put it down to carelessness on my part: I shouldn't have been there at that time of night; I should have stayed the night in the fishing hut and just burned more fuel than I would have liked. So I am still dying in Stalker to the odd bit of miscalculation and unforeseen hazards. The problem is, the less you explore and take risks, the more successful you tend to be. Even if this is realistic, I think it's the wrong way up in terms of gameplay.

If you have rabbits and fishing near your home, and you have a workbench with a ready supply of metal for making hooks, you're set - you don't need to go anywhere, ever. And there are quite a lot of locations that fit this bill across different maps; it isn't a difficult state to achieve. There isn't any reward for going out in poor weather or at night, or for going anywhere near dangerous wildlife; it's always the wrong choice, so you don't do it - there's no reason to. Not while you can live forever by fishing and trapping one small area, which is both the easiest and the safest way to play.

So I'd say, fishing and rabbit trapping should be made much less productive (in Stalker, at least). This might compel you to supplement your diet by hunting more often (I very rarely set out to go hunting - it's only when a deer pops up in front of me and I'm not too busy doing something else that I ever even bother shooting at them). It might also compel you to set more traps over a larger area to force you to travel more. And perhaps if hunting was generally harder, deer were more flighty and aware of your presence? Or deer were much more active and prominent (and less aware of your presence) at night rather than in the day, thereby giving you more reason to be active yourself in those more dangerous environmental conditions? I don't know, but something to encourage players to take risks more and get out of their comfort zone, to travel and expose themselves to danger. Because there are dangers out there, it's just that you can avoid them nearly all of the time by repeating fairly mundane tasks over and over.

[Dirmagnos]

Fishing and trapping combined currently are far easier and more productive than hunting, in both terms of resources and effort. And yeah, there should be something compelling player to move around, not just sit by one fishing hut and making daily trips collecting dead rabbits day after day, pretty much indefinitely without any need of doing anything else. Even hunting deer is not as effective as simply trapping, not to mention predators with those stupid parasites as bonus. Once player gets wolf coat he needs maybe killing one additional wolf per month to keep it repaired and thats it on that part, there is no other incentive to midgle with predators. They are simply not worth the effort.

[dbldrew]

12 hours ago, Ruruwawa said:

In my 750 hours played, I've deleted more than 100 sandboxes.  I often just play until I feel "secure", then I delete and start again.  I have a couple longer runs I keep around for when I feel like puttering, but usually once routine kicks in and my wits are no longer needed, I call it quits for that sandbox.

i do the same thing.. around day 20-30 is when i get bored.. i tried doing a run where i can not eat any man made food other then what i spawn with.. that was a fun challenge, but the same thing is once i get control it gets kind of boring.

 

I think a major overhaul to the hunting and animal behavior is needed. Hunting should be a challenge. maybe add more options for hunting small game like rabbits and squirrels etc.. maybe a sling, or a cheap easy arrow, maybe a work bench arrowhead or just a sharpened branch. something quick and easy that can take down small game and not work on larger game.. 

crouch walking up to a deer is really easy and completely ridiculous. Deer should be rarer, and once you hunt them they start to not re-spawn in the area for a while  

  

[Rifleman]

17 hours ago, Ruruwawa said:

I didn't answer the poll because I feel it's poorly designed.  The choices are designed to tell Hinterland how to "fix" their game.  Instead, why not tell them what's wrong or missing in Stalker mode so they can address it in a way the fits their vision and their business model?  I think a poll that asked Stalker players to "pick the one feature that should be more challenging" would give them a much better picture of both what needs to be added to make stalker "more difficult", as well as how much agreement there is about what needs adjusting.  At least among the Stalker players on these forums (Hinterlands has to consider their wider playerbase too, of course).

I *do* play Stalker most of the time, for the more harsher weather and afflictions.  And I don't care how Wolf-Apocalypse-Extreme mode they make Stalker.  Seriously, go bananas.  I avoid wolves and they don't often factor into my play except as an obstacle to avoid.  Killing wolves doesn't add much to stalker for me, however, and the waste of killing them when I don't need any resources from them makes me enjoy the game less.

What I'd really like is a separate mode with challenging weather and affliction mechanics, plus more realistic predator-to-prey ratios.  I'd play that instead of Stalker.  If they made both prey and predators more rare and I'd be joyous.  THAT is the challenge I'd like to see -- more realistic effort to hunt food.  Maybe it takes days to take down a deer, but it feeds me for longer too.  The occasional megastorm would be great too.

 

I made this topic simple to answer. If you want to go into greater depth of how to fix the difficulty you should make a topic for it.

[Ruruwawa]

4 hours ago, Rifleman said:

I made this topic simple to answer. If you want to go into greater depth of how to fix the difficulty you should make a topic for it.

Let me try to explain the problem with this poll using an analogy.  Let's say the poll choices were these:

• Taxis should always use the Alpha Motorway
• Taxis should always use the Beta Motorway

See the problem?  What if your destination is a block away?  Or in a different direction from either motorway?  The best route for the taxi depends on where you are going.  

Increasing challenge in TLD is no different.  The best solution depends on what needs to change.  "Change Stalker" and "Add a new difficulty" are just as meaningless as mandating a taxis use a particular route.  

This poll is designed just like the taxi poll.  Mandate a specific action without first telling them where we want to go.  

And I mean exactly where we want to go.  If you jump into a random taxi and say "take me home" does the driver know where to go?  We need to give Hinterlands specific feedback about what we like or dislike.

[Rifleman]

3 minutes ago, Ruruwawa said:

Let me try to explain the problem with this poll using an analogy.  Let's say the poll choices were these:

• Taxis should always use the Alpha Motorway
• Taxis should always use the Beta Motorway

See the problem?  What if your destination is a block away?  Or in a different direction from either motorway?  The best route for the taxi depends on where you are going.  

Increasing challenge in TLD is no different.  The best solution depends on what needs to change.  "Change Stalker" and "Add a new difficulty" are just as meaningless as mandating a taxis use a particular route.  

This poll is designed just like the taxi poll.  Mandate a specific action without first telling them where we want to go.  

And I mean exactly where we want to go.  If you jump into a random taxi and say "take me home" does the driver know where to go?  We need to give Hinterlands specific feedback about what we like or dislike.

Like I said I'm keeping this simple. Both options will give expert players a bigger challenge. 

[Ruruwawa]

50 minutes ago, Rifleman said:

Like I said I'm keeping this simple. Both options will give expert players a bigger challenge. 

But they are far from the only options.   I'll list a few more but please don't take this as an exhaustive list.  It isn't.  There are a lot of smart, creative people at Hinterland, and they WILL think of things neither us think of.  That's why the "how to address" needs to be 100% their decision.

Four more classic ways to offer a variant on a game:  Challenges, Separate related title ("TLD Extreme"), DLC, Mods

New features -- including ones already being implemented that we don't know about yet. Hinterland may already be adding features to the game that increase the difficulty.  They might be implemented in all experience modes, not just stalker, to conditionally increase the difficulty.  I don't know what Hinterland is planning, but here are some examples of features like that:

• Find an item in game that triggers a specific challenge.  (A huge rush of wolves, a snowblind condition, etc)  
• A disaster takes out your supplies or base (An avalanche, aurora-caused fire, etc)
• Difficulty increases over time (weather, hunting, risks)
• Difficulty increases with gear (weather, hunting, risks)
• Difficulty increases with NPCs
• etc.

[Vinceofpyrenees]

I think stalker is fine. But i militate for a personalised level of difficulty. As I like to play in Voyageur mod for some reasons :

[reasonnable wildlife number and agressivity, balance of calories and temperature mechanic, reasonnable weather for example], I'd like to play in the same time with intestinal parasites and stronger wolfes (not more) for example. 

That's why I wish a customisable level. ...Raphael If you read me !

 

[dbldrew]

5 hours ago, Vinceofpyrenees said:

I think stalker is fine. But i militate for a personalised level of difficulty. As I like to play in Voyageur mod for some reasons :

[reasonnable wildlife number and agressivity, balance of calories and temperature mechanic, reasonnable weather for example], I'd like to play in the same time with intestinal parasites and stronger wolfes (not more) for example. 

That's why I wish a customisable level. ...Raphael If you read me !

 

I agree customizable hardness level is the only option that will work. no matter what, just making stalker harder some players will be mad because now its too hard.. adding a 4th preset harder option will help.. but maybe its not hard enough, or maybe its too hard for others.. point being is you will never make everyone happy. But with players able to custom adjust the hardness then that should solve most of the hardness problems.

People have talked before about balance and new content not being able to balance in a custom "slider bar" style of different hardness settings. That is true but so what. All they have to do is design the game and content around the 3 pre set hardness settings , pilgrim, voyager, and stalker.. and leader-boards or achievements etc will only be used for the standard 3. 

[Rifleman]

9 hours ago, dbldrew said:

I agree customizable hardness level is the only option that will work. no matter what, just making stalker harder some players will be mad because now its too hard.. adding a 4th preset harder option will help.. but maybe its not hard enough, or maybe its too hard for others.. point being is you will never make everyone happy. But with players able to custom adjust the hardness then that should solve most of the hardness problems.

People have talked before about balance and new content not being able to balance in a custom "slider bar" style of different hardness settings. That is true but so what. All they have to do is design the game and content around the 3 pre set hardness settings , pilgrim, voyager, and stalker.. and leader-boards or achievements etc will only be used for the standard 3. 

Hinterland said that they will not be adding a custom difficulty.

@Patrick Carlson

[dbldrew]

54 minutes ago, Rifleman said:

Hinterland said that they will not be adding a custom difficulty.

@Patrick Carlson

well then i guess we will need to keep asking for it until they change there minds.. because that is the only option so far that could solve the majority of the hardness/challenging issues. 

[Patrick Carlson]

1 hour ago, Rifleman said:

Hinterland said that they will not be adding a custom difficulty.

@Patrick Carlson

We've commented on the topic of "custom sliders" in the past and nothing has really changed at this point. Our standpoint has always been that the game isn't meant to be all things to all people. The design team introduces variety through the Experience Modes themselves in order to offer focused gameplay for each mode. It's not simply about "hard" or "easy."

The introduction of something like sliders for various mechanics would carry the risk of watering down the game for everyone, rather than expressing the vision the development team has for The Long Dark. I hope that helps!  

[Gonzalo]

1 minute ago, Patrick Carlson said:

We've commented on the topic of "custom sliders" in the past and nothing has really changed at this point. Our standpoint has always been that the game isn't meant to be all things to all people. The design team introduces variety through the Experience Modes themselves in order to offer focused gameplay for each mode. It's not simply about "hard" or "easy."

The introduction of something like sliders for various mechanics would carry the risk of watering down the game for everyone, rather than expressing the vision the development team has for The Long Dark. I hope that helps!  

Fully agree with you, plus nothing that mods can't fix in the long run

[Rifleman]

7 hours ago, dbldrew said:

well then i guess we will need to keep asking for it until they change there minds.. because that is the only option so far that could solve the majority of the hardness/challenging issues. 

Just because you spam for something doesn't mean you will get it. You will be banned like every spammer before you.

[dbldrew]

12 hours ago, Patrick Carlson said:

We've commented on the topic of "custom sliders" in the past and nothing has really changed at this point. Our standpoint has always been that the game isn't meant to be all things to all people. The design team introduces variety through the Experience Modes themselves in order to offer focused gameplay for each mode. It's not simply about "hard" or "easy."

The introduction of something like sliders for various mechanics would carry the risk of watering down the game for everyone, rather than expressing the vision the development team has for The Long Dark. I hope that helps!  

how is adding a custom slider option going to water it down for everyone? i dont think anyone that was asking for the sider option was asking that be the only difficulty available. and if they where then i agree that shouldn't be the case.. but everything i have read and personally agree with is that a 4th option is the custom one. So if pilgrim, voyager and stalker are still there then players can still play the "hinterlands vision" of the game.. and for the players who dont really like every aspect of "hinterlands vision" it allows then to still enjoy the game rather then quiting and moving on to another game..

Adding a custom option takes away absolutely nothing from the players who love pilgrim, voyager, and stalker. All it does is expand the player base.. isnt that a good thing? 

[dbldrew]

5 hours ago, Rifleman said:

Just because you spam for something doesn't mean you will get it. You will be banned like every spammer before you.

making an intelligent argument to try to change someones mind is hardly spamming.. that is what happens when in a debate. I see great potential in this game.. the game is still in alpha so now is the time to make big changes to the game..  

And if i get banned from talking about a feature that a great many people seem to want then so be it..

[Rifleman]

1 minute ago, dbldrew said:

making an intelligent argument to try to change someones mind is hardly spamming.. that is what happens when in a debate. I see great potential in this game.. the game is still in alpha so now is the time to make big changes to the game..  

And if i get banned from talking about a feature that a great many people seem to want then so be it..

Ok but can you Take your idea to another topic.

[dbldrew]

3 minutes ago, Rifleman said:

Ok but can you Take your idea to another topic.

why? "there needs to be a difficulty harder then stalker" The 4th custom option fits that topic.. 

[Ohbal]

12 hours ago, Patrick Carlson said:

The introduction of something like sliders for various mechanics would carry the risk of watering down the game for everyone, rather than expressing the vision the development team has for The Long Dark. I hope that helps!  

I'm perfectly fine with you guys stating you want to stay true to your vision but the "watering down for everyone" reason doesn't really cut it. We are talking about and additional mode where you can customize your game, not making every experience mode customizable. 

 

35 minutes ago, dbldrew said:

Adding a custom option takes away absolutely nothing from the players who love pilgrim, voyager, and stalker. All it does is expand the player base.. isnt that a good thing? 

Basically, this  

 

12 hours ago, Gonzalo said:

nothing that mods can't fix in the long run

Luckily, we'll get there eventually. 

[Rifleman]

3 hours ago, dbldrew said:

why? "there needs to be a difficulty harder then stalker" The 4th custom option fits that topic.. 

You are talking about suggestion that are ruled out by the developers and I don't want that on my topic.

[dbldrew]

31 minutes ago, Rifleman said:

You are talking about suggestion that are ruled out by the developers and I don't want that on my topic.

and yet the addition of a 4th harder option was also ruled out by the developers and you still asked of it in your poll. the custom option has been requested by many people and it fits into your topic. if people want to talk about the pros and cons then that what message boards are for. The game is on alpha now is the time to talk about it regardless if the developers think its a good idea or not. 

this is the last i will talk about if we should or should not talk about it. i really dont want to waste time arguing if we should even discuss it.. it will be discussed if people like the idea..