Make your experience "just right" via Feats


Ruruwawa

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There's a "Goldilocks" problem with the current four experience modes.  Often players find one experience mode they almost love, but not quite.  Here are a few examples of common criticisms:

  • Everything is great in stalker, except it's too much bother to deal with cabin fever
  • Voyageur feels too easy, but I don't like the wolves in Stalker and the jump to Interloper is too difficult
  • Interloper is too easy now too

 

Often players are advised to abandon their favorite experience mode to "fix" that one mechanic they don't enjoy.  ("Don't like cabin fever?  Play Pilgrim!")  This isn't a recipe for fun.  What's "just right" varies a lot from person to person, and each person's sweet spot tends to shift over time with game knowledge and experience.  

 

How to solve it?

A lot of people have suggested sliders or mods, but Hinterland haven't given us much hope for either of these in the near future.  And I can see their point.  Hard to preserve the wonderful, unique character of The Long Dark when the bears can shoot lasers from their eyes.  Let me illustrate with a sliders mishap from The Sims:

 

161kym0[1].jpg

 

 

One possible solution:  add feats that bridge the most common gaps between the experience modes.  BTW, I'm not the first to suggest something like this (see this excellent thread by @Scyzara) but I wanted to discuss the feats in relation to the Goldilocks problem in particular.  Let me start with a picture:

 

modes.png

 

I know this is a huge simplification of the differences between the four experience modes, but it illustrates two points:

  1. Difficulty is a combination of loot availability, animal behavior and what I'll lump together as "survival challenges":  all the mechanics related to cold, hunger, fatigue, etc., plus weather and afflictions.  Changing any of these can change the difficulty.
  2. The current feats always make the game easier by mitigating those survival challenges: calories consumed, rate of fatigue, feels like temperature, etc.  Because the number of feats you can slot is greater for easier difficulties, this 'making the game easier' effect is even more pronounced there.

 

What's missing are feats to make an experience mode harder  

Today the way to increase challenge in a sandbox is to move to a harder experience mode.  Sometimes that means a giant step (to Interloper, for example) or a step away from something you really enjoy (or to something you don't enjoy).  No small tweaks like the current feats.  No medium steps to bridge the big gaps between experience modes, either.

 

For example, I'm not a Stalker fan despite several hundred days played in the mode.  It's a fine mode with many devotees, but wolfpocalypse is just not my thing.  But there are a two aspects of Stalker I really love:  the weather and requirement to make a 'hot enough' fire.  I'd love to be able to transplant these into my Voyageur sandbox for a more challenging experience.   Or into my Interloper sandbox for a less challenging experience.

 

The nuts and bolts for Feats that bridge experience modes

Since I've already suggested transplanting weather between modes, let talk first about steps to keep the four experience modes distinct and true to their intended niche.  I suggest locking down the key characteristics for each experience modes so they can't be modified by a feat.  When creating a new sandbox, player would first choose a mode based on these key characteristics, then tweak by adding Feats.

 

Exactly what these are is Hinterland's call, but I've listed some examples in black below.   (BTW, "basic ailments" is my shorthand for all the afflictions and injuries except frostbite, cabin fever and parasites.  'Rates' refers to the how fast the character gets cold, hungry, thirsty, tired, etc.)

 

feats.png

Features that a feat might swap from a different experience mode are listed in purple, and features a feat might disable are shown in red.  You'd need to unlock these feats via a lot of relevant effort, just as with the current feats.  For example, the Interloper Loot feat might require you to loot 1000 items in Interloper to unlock.  The No Cabin Fever feat might require you to build 250 fires outdoors.  Etc.

 

Changing the amount and balance of world loot is another way to make a favorite experience mode easier or harder.  A side benefit of making loot swappable is that Stalker loot could be made unique from Voyageur loot.  Imagine a Stalker loot loadout with high levels of ammo, food, matches and flares, but few weapons, tools, and clothes compared to now.  A good start but not a Walmart.

 

Of course there are many other potential feats beyond the ones I list above, with interesting and sometimes subtle tradeoffs.  Check out the thread I mentioned above for some specific examples. 

 

I'm all for simpler "makes it harder" Feats as well.   Interloper too easy?  Slot the Feels Like -5C feat.  Heck, perhaps Hinterland should market a Arctic Survivalist DLC with feats for Feels Like -5C, -10C, -15C and -20C, plus a couple more to double the frequency and/or duration of blizzards.

 

A  few more thoughts about Feats

I wasn't a fan of Feats at first, but now that we are able to slot only a few feats per sandbox (or none!) I've really become sold on the system.  Feats give the player a lot of flexibility, while letting Hinterland preserve the core experience for the game.  Plus:

  • Feats feel good to earn.  Each new feat is a goal, then an accomplishment, and finally an asset to tweak your future experiences.  It's not just config, it's content.
  • In the course of earning the feats, I'm learning and getting better at the game.   By the time I've earned a feat, I probably understand the impact it will have on my sandbox.
  • Feats are incremental: they can be released one at a time or in bunches.  Hinterland can develop new feats at a pace and timing that works best for them.  
  • Feats are an integral feature of the game.  Nothing to download/debug.

 

 

That's my 2 cents.   And yeah it's a huge wall of text for 2 cents, but it's sort of like the deal Hinterland gave me... I'm already well under 1 cent per hour played. :D 

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Thank you for sharing your thoughts in such a detailed way, I agree to many of your ideas. And I would certainly find it very appealing if the feat system was expanded further to give different players the ability to adapt the game to their own needs & preferences.

It would imo also add a lot of replayability to TLD as a whole if your choice of feats actually had a much stronger impact on the gameplay experience than it currently does. For me personally, this question also goes beyond difficulty - I would really love to see feats that change the experience as a whole (while the overall difficulty may still stay the same). Exchanging daylight hours for longer fire durations (and possibly much shorter wood foraging times) would certainly be one of my favorites. Not because I want the game to be easier or harder, but simply to give me the option to play Interloper mode in a different way than I currently do.

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45 minutes ago, Scyzara said:

 Exchanging daylight hours for longer fire durations (and possibly much shorter wood foraging times) would certainly be one of my favorites. Not because I want the game to be easier or harder, but simply to give me the option to play Interloper mode in a different way than I currently do.

Having "realistic" daylight would be nightmarish challenge to add. You'd be looking at risking animal attack/freezing constantly as you'd have double dawn and dusk, an hour or two of twilight, far shorter days and probably the same amount of night time. You'd be forced to forage, gather wood, and travel at least partially in the dark. If the moon were made brighter to compensate and given phases you'd really start hoping for each long dark (night) to be over :)

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26 minutes ago, cekivi said:

Having "realistic" daylight would be nightmarish challenge to add. You'd be looking at risking animal attack/freezing constantly as you'd have double dawn and dusk, an hour or two of twilight, far shorter days and probably the same amount of night time. You'd be forced to forage, gather wood, and travel at least partially in the dark.  If the moon were made brighter to compensate and given phases you'd really start hoping for each long dark (night) to be over :)

I think you know me well enough to know I wouldn't mind that at all. ;)

 

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6 minutes ago, Scyzara said:

I think you know me well enough to know I wouldn't mind that at all. ;)

 

Provided there was a slight increase in torch/lantern burn times it would make for a very interesting experience. And yes, I suspect you wouldn't mind ;)

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5 hours ago, cekivi said:

Having "realistic" daylight would be nightmarish challenge to add.

IMO this is the kind of challenge tweak that is perfect as a feat.  Feats are (or could be) cheap and plentiful.  Totally OK to have feats that aren't for everyone, since we can choose only a small number per sandbox.  I doubt I'd personally slot "no cabin fever", even on Interloper, but I bet it would be a popular choice.  I did like @Scyzara's earlier suggestion of a feat that made day and night 12 hours each, with a small bonus to fire duration -- that one would make me rethink how and when I get stuff done.

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