suggestion Sense of fulfillment

[MemeRunner]

Okay so I've been playing since the full game was released so I am by no means an 'OG pro' in this game and do not aim to talk for anyone here and will understand if my suggestion is against the deeper message of the game or anything like that. but there's something that's been bothering me every since I started playing 'survival' and went looking in the forums for pro players that are like 200 days into their run and discuss how the are ready to end it beacause of running out of non-renewable resources such as matches, scrap, animals (depending on your difficulty settings) and other stuff. 

Well, this got me thinking about the entire purpose of 'survival' and I quite understand the message being that you can't indefinitely survive on your own and with resources as limited as they are in a game like this, but then again, I don't quite feel like delving into this run that's gonna consume days or even weeks just to get to a point where all my effort and knowledge will never be compensated by any means. I'm probaly too pampered by other modern games into thinking that gratification comes only from achieving a 'ending screen' of some sort and getting a pat in the back from the devs telling me "Hey good job, you won!" but I genuinely gave some tought into this matter and kinda came up with an idea that without restructuring the WHOLE game system and general atmosphere (in my humble opinion) can solve this at least for the people who, like me, have felt this before.

It goes like this... okay so you've survived for a determined amount of time (be it 100-200 days) and now you are ready to move on to another run but you kinda feel this inner need to get some closure without dying, so, you finally grab your gear, stack the last of the food left on the whole island and go climb that intimidating Timberwolf mountain, you get to the top, grab the flare gun, walk to the highest posible land you can and shoot it at the sky in a desperate cry for help... you don't know if this is even worth it but is either that or die without trying... so now, you wait... you can't leave the top now for if by any chance someone comes they'll expect to find you there and anyway you don't have the energy nor the resources to make it to the bottom again and it'll all be for nothing if you do, so you wait a few days and try to survive with what little you have left. after a while you hear something coming and then the screen turns black and some white text comes on the screen and it tells you how or if you got rescued and displays some general stats of your run, like how many days passed, calories consumed, animals hunted, etc. and this way you kinda get the feeling that you actually acomplished something.

now, I know some of you wouldn't like this for a variety of reasons and I have no reason to assume in anyway it would be easy to code into the game but I just wanted to let it out and hear some feedback and opinions on it, I runned my idea on some friends and they tought it was cool, of course it would be totally optional, and really hard to accomplish by an innexperienced player and even for some pros. but I kinda even get excited by thinking in the roleplaying of the whole ordeal haha. hope this gets to the devs and they can actually give their thoughts as to why it would be either possible or not viable at all. 

PD: I totally love the game as it is right now and admire the work, message and soul you've put into this game and is quickly settling as one of my all time favorite survival games out there. I will be buying any future DLC's or games you throw at us in the future for you have gained my respect, trust and fondness.

[Admin]

Moved to the Wish List forum where this probably better fits. Thanks for the feedback!

[MemeRunner]

3 minutes ago, admin said:

Moved to the Wish List forum where this probably better fits. Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks, I was about to do that myself when I saw the wishlist subforum. Hope I am at some level of any help and thanks for taking the time to read my suggestion. have a nice day  

[DeLe]

In my opinion, would be nice to make a certain purpose for survival, that can be completed. Something like challenges, but more global. Something, that's not even being reminded while surviving.

For example, you start a game with short intro, telling about plane crushing in Northern Canada. So you firstly need to find your plane in Milton's mountains, because you flew by parashute to another location. Then you have to somehow collect remains of plane and deliver them to Quonset Garage, where you repair some of them. Before it, you need to find required tools. Then you go to Timberwolf and look for remaining plane details. After this, you repair your plane with ductape, but it's not ready yet. You have to find distillator and distillate some oil merged from car tanks to actual fuel for plane. Then you clear off Coastal Highway's lake to make it look like runway, set barrels which illuminates runway at night. And finally, when aurora comes, you pull your plane out, incinerate barrels, start engine and fly away. Final. Statistic screen. Achievment unlocked.

And that way is absolutely optional. So you can survive day by day and do not even think about that. Or you can play your usual survival and collect required staff in different locations gradually step-by-step. Or even speedrun it, like «Hopeless Rescue».

[Senauer]

14 hours ago, MemeRunner said:

(...) you get to the top, grab the flare gun, walk to the highest posible land you can and shoot it at the sky in a desperate cry for help... you don't know if this is even worth it but is either that or die without trying... so now, you wait... you can't leave the top now for if by any chance someone comes they'll expect to find you there and anyway you don't have the energy nor the resources to make it to the bottom again and it'll all be for nothing if you do, so you wait a few days and try to survive with what little you have left.

Just do it! The game allows you to play this way, so why don't you role-play a bit?  If you have let's say 7 flares you can set yourself the challenge of surviving 7 days on the summit whit whatever you can bring along in only one climb. Fire a flare per day and "wait" for your rescuers. If you survive then you've made it! Besides, as most likely it will be easy to survive on top of TWM with the amount of resources that you find in the cargo containers, just don't open them. Don't take a hacksaw with you. You can pretend that you did not find a hacksaw, that the ones you found were ruined, or even that you forgot it! This way you can try to live on the summit only with what you brought on you for the ascension.

13 hours ago, DeLe said:

For example, you start a game with short intro, telling about plane crushing in Northern Canada. So you firstly need to find your plane in Milton's mountains, because you flew by parashute to another location. Then you have to somehow collect remains of plane and deliver them to Quonset Garage, where you repair some of them. Before it, you need to find required tools. Then you go to Timberwolf and look for remaining plane details. After this, you repair your plane with ductape, but it's not ready yet. You have to find distillator and distillate some oil merged from car tanks to actual fuel for plane. Then you clear off Coastal Highway's lake to make it look like runway, set barrels which illuminates runway at night. And finally, when aurora comes, you pull your plane out, incinerate barrels, start engine and fly away. Final. Statistic screen. Achievment unlocked.

The same here! Define your own challenges, set your rules and what is valid or not. See what the game world has to offer in terms of game mechanics, materials, locations, etc., and adapt those to go with your enterprise. For instance, you cannot move or create fire barrels but you could just light two rows of campfires for the runway! If you think that it suits your challenge, then it's valid.

On the Survival Stories sub-forum (here) you will find many ideas about endgame challenges and role-playing your way into those. Also, there is a thread (there) discussing how it would be to "rebuild" the plane at the summit 

Of course one will not get an "ending" screen after all the hassle, but the sense of accomplishment that these personal goals and challenges will give you when fulfilled will most likely replace that.

 

[MemeRunner]

22 hours ago, DeLe said:

For example, you start a game with short intro, telling about plane crushing in Northern Canada. So you firstly need to find your plane in Milton's mountains, because you flew by parashute to another location. Then you have to somehow collect remains of plane and deliver them to Quonset Garage, where you repair some of them. Before it, you need to find required tools. Then you go to Timberwolf and look for remaining plane details. After this, you repair your plane with ductape, but it's not ready yet. You have to find distillator and distillate some oil merged from car tanks to actual fuel for plane. Then you clear off Coastal Highway's lake to make it look like runway, set barrels which illuminates runway at night. And finally, when aurora comes, you pull your plane out, incinerate barrels, start engine and fly away. Final. Statistic screen. Achievment unlocked.

I very much like this idea! see? this goes beyond 1 unique way to escape the island, there could be atleast 5 non implied ways to escape you'd have to figure by yourself and make a challenge out of it. all heavily optional and full of roleplay.

 

8 hours ago, Senauer said:

Of course one will not get an "ending" screen after all the hassle, but the sense of accomplishment that these personal goals and challenges will give you when fulfilled will most likely replace that.

 

You see, I know that I can do all of it minus the "ending" screen but that's my hole point, to atleast have some kind of totally optional one that can give me a recognition for my 'stats' in that run. I'm not asking like a full blown ending with a entire novel of what happened after my rescue or a cinematic of some sorts. just a simple "You were rescued after XXX days and XX hours." followed by a quick resume of all the things you've done in that specific run. and It also adds a complete new depth to survival! it's like (and I'm not comparing the game at all with these one's but just an example) minecraft with 'the end' or the forest's campaing or *instert almost any survival with optional storyline or ending*.

 

9 hours ago, Senauer said:

On the Survival Stories sub-forum (here) you will find many ideas about endgame challenges and role-playing your way into those. Also, there is a thread (there) discussing how it would be to "rebuild" the plane at the summit 

 

Oh and thanks for this  

[FireCraft78]

I totally agree with you and I already made a similar post to yours. I think the sandbox mode doesn't need another ending screen than dying, because the point of the sandbox mode is to survive as long as possible.

What the devs could do is creating new challenges in which you must explore all the regions and where the tasks are very long so you it would look as the sandbox mode but you have an objective that would take you, let's say 100-200 days to accomplish.

There could be one challenge for each way to escape / be rescued, or/and a new gaming mode where all the ways are available.

[DeLe]

12 minutes ago, FireCraft78 said:

I totally agree with you and I already made a similar post to yours. I think the sandbox mode doesn't need another ending screen than dying, because the point of the sandbox mode is to survive as long as possible.

What the devs could do is creating new challenges in which you must explore all the regions and where the tasks are very long so you it would look as the sandbox mode but you have an objective that would take you, let's say 100-200 days to accomplish.

There could be one challenge for each way to escape / be rescued, or/and a new gaming mode where all the ways are available.

That is exactly what I want to say. Symbiose of challenge and survival.

[MemeRunner]

4 hours ago, FireCraft78 said:

I totally agree with you and I already made a similar post to yours. I think the sandbox mode doesn't need another ending screen than dying, because the point of the sandbox mode is to survive as long as possible.

What the devs could do is creating new challenges in which you must explore all the regions and where the tasks are very long so you it would look as the sandbox mode but you have an objective that would take you, let's say 100-200 days to accomplish.

There could be one challenge for each way to escape / be rescued, or/and a new gaming mode where all the ways are available.

Even better! thanks for your feedback, that's actually a very good opinion  

[ajb1978]

This could be interesting, and I would be in favor of non-death survival mode endings provided they were optional.  And preferably cryptic and the requirements were not made public by Hinterland.  Maybe offer a clue, such as "A coal-fired fishing boat is known to pass by the harbor," and the actual ending requirements are...like spend 100 days in Coastal Highway, start at least 10 fires that are 12 hours or longer, then some clear night you can see a blinking light way out on the water.  Light off a signal flare, road flare, or start an outdoor campfire, and the next day a rowboat appears near the waterline.  Click on it to end the game with you being rescued by fishermen, or ignore the boat for 7 days to despawn it and you continue on playing.

I don't know, I mean I'm not sure how much value it adds to the game, practically speaking, when I can just delete my save and write my own ending narrative in my head.  But it would be interesting, I grant that.

[s7mar7in]

On ‎7‎/‎23‎/‎2018 at 12:46 PM, MemeRunner said:

and then the screen turns black and some white text comes on the screen and it tells you how or if you got rescued and displays some general stats of your run, like how many days passed, calories consumed, animals hunted, etc. and this way you kinda get the feeling that you actually acomplished something.

Welcome to the forum @MemeRunner, this could be a very nice way to end a game, but it does not belong in 'Survival Mode' in my opinion.

If a NEW mode was created for let's say a 100/200/500 day 'Challenge Mode', then this ending could be presented as a compilation of screenshots, stats, and even story narrative.

Good luck my friends!

[Lonelyloper]

On 7/25/2018 at 2:28 AM, ajb1978 said:

This could be interesting, and I would be in favor of non-death survival mode endings provided they were optional.  And preferably cryptic and the requirements were not made public by Hinterland.  Maybe offer a clue, such as "A coal-fired fishing boat is known to pass by the harbor," and the actual ending requirements are...like spend 100 days in Coastal Highway, start at least 10 fires that are 12 hours or longer, then some clear night you can see a blinking light way out on the water.  Light off a signal flare, road flare, or start an outdoor campfire, and the next day a rowboat appears near the waterline.  Click on it to end the game with you being rescued by fishermen, or ignore the boat for 7 days to despawn it and you continue on playing.

I don't know, I mean I'm not sure how much value it adds to the game, practically speaking, when I can just delete my save and write my own ending narrative in my head.  But it would be interesting, I grant that.

I really like the general idea from @MemeRunner and I particularly like this boat idea  . I think it's be nice to have optional ways to end your game other than the inevitable death.

[ajb1978]

22 hours ago, s7mar7in said:

If a NEW mode was created for let's say a 100/200/500 day 'Challenge Mode', then this ending could be presented as a compilation of screenshots, stats, and even story narrative.

Normally when this kind of topic comes up, my suggestion is to play the Nomad challenge.  It's basically Voyageur, but you can end the game without dying by completing the challenge requirements.  You can otherwise play for as long as you want, since there's no time limit as there is in say Whiteout.  The downside is you are locked into Voyageur, so Interloper fans for instance probably wouldn't appreciate that.

[s7mar7in]

2 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

Normally when this kind of topic comes up, my suggestion is to play the Nomad challenge.

I really appreciate your reply regarding a nomad challenge @ajb1978, and I agree with you that the nomad challenge is a game with an ending, it is not an infinite 'Survivor Mode' type of gameplay. 
The OP, I think, is also suggesting a creative way to have a game with an ending and a cinematic display of the player's choices and stats.

This cinematic slideshow of highlights of the challenge in the form of a screenshot slideshow and captions that tell the story of the challenge, (including some key statistics from the journal), is a wonderful idea...I would love to see it added someday.

My reply to the OP is only my opinion that it would not work within the 'Survivor Mode' of TLD.

Good luck my friends!

[Nogen]

I like the idea and I think there's great suggestion in this topic.

It would be great, when you feel you're done with a run and since you passed so much time with your character, that you have had an alternative to end your run and make a transition to the next one other than death or just erasing your save game.

[StrayCat]

On 26/07/2018 at 11:48 PM, s7mar7in said:

If a NEW mode was created for let's say a 100/200/500 day 'Challenge Mode', then this ending could be presented as a compilation of screenshots, stats, and even story narrative.

Now, THAT's a good innovative idea. Challenges as they are now, are designed to last only a few ingame weeks at most. We now need long-term, hard-to-succeed challenges. Throw in the custom settings, and that will keep us busy for quite some time.