My Meta-Challenge (Beyond Stalker Difficulty)

I've recently developed a meta-challenge true to the motto: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going". It's meant for experienced Stalker players who grew bored with the current Stalker mode and want to bring back some of their old excitement for this awesome game.

As I had a whole lot of fun while developing, tweaking and playing this challenge, I've decided to post it here. Warning: This challenge is meant to be extremely hard, so please don't complain about it being too difficult.

My meta-challenge covers four maps, three transition maps, requires you to make use of four different playstyles and takes between 40-60 ingame days and about 12-15 real life hours to complete (unless you die earlier of course ;P ). You will inevitably die in the end.

During your playthrough you will experience early-, mid- and endgame in a very condensed fashion while at the same time being challenged by further tasks and rules. Skills like crafting items or medicine are only gained after certain periods of time to simulate a learning process of your character.

Time will always be your adversary, but in quite different ways: On two maps you'll need to hurry to complete all your tasks prior to a certain key date, on the other two maps you'll need to try to last as long as possible with the limited resources you're allowed to use. To compensate the game's "natural" difficulty curve (hardest at the beginning, easier later on), the challenges will get more and more difficult with every consecutive map. The last two challenges (PV and ML) are really tough and won't forgive any mistakes.

Each map has its own set of rules as well as an additional (facultative) nightmare difficulty rule. The latter makes each map's challenge significantly more difficult, so please don't try it unless you search a really punishing experience.

Attached please find a concept diagram about each map's tasks & rules (please zoom in to view properly). I've also written down everything in very much detail for further clarification (see next post).

Day 1-2= Desolation Point: Scavenger (Early game)

Main challenge: The whole map needs to be explored and looted within 2 days. Don't pick up any tools and don't use more than 12 matches.

Playstyle: Rushed Looter/Scavenger in a world that lacks tools and weapons.

State of knowledge: No harvesting of animal corpses, crafting or renewable medicine is allowed to simulate a complete lack of knowledge.

Rules in detail:

Start a new game (Stalker mode) on the Desolation Point map and completely explore it within 48 hours (including caves, mines, cars, etc)!

Only premade medicine may be used. You're not allowed to harvest plants, lichen or fungi.

The maximum number of matches that you're allowed to use on this map is 12. (If you already start with 12 matches in your inventory, pick up none). Fires may only be started with either matches or flares. Accelerant may not be used.

You're NOT allowed to pick up (or forge/craft) any rifle, bow, knife, hatchet, prybar, hacksaw or can opener. The only exception is the hammer (necessity to forge arrowheads).

You're furthermore not allowed to craft anything at the crafting table, but you ARE allowed to forge arrowheads (exception for those who want to use a bow later on in PV).

You are allowed to pick up and consume premade foods and drinks (cans have to be smashed). You may also melt snow.

You're allowed to pick up and use premade medicine, clothes, sewing kits, flares and lanterns.

You may use decoys, torches and flares to fend off wolves & bears.

You're also allowed to pick up rifle ammunition and arrows (as you'll need a lot of them in PV later on).

Nightmare rule: Spend your first two nights (dusk till dawn) in Katie's Secluded Corner.

Tips for Desolation Point:

[spoil]This challenge is rather easy - not much to take heed of here. However, you should try to loot as much ammunition as possible - you'll be grateful for it later on in Pleasant Valley. If you want to use a bow in PV, don't forget to craft arrowheads now.

Oh, and don't enter the cave near the western bridge unprepared.^^[/spoil]

When moving on to Coastal Highway during the third night (between 50 and 70 hours, it must be nighttime), you may take all your belongings with you. However, the maximum amount of potable water that you're allowed to bring is 2 liters (including soda)!

Night 3 = Crumbling Highway challenge

Cross mine N0.3 and the Crumbling Highway at night.

Using a lantern, torch or flare is only allowed inside the mine.

Day 3-22 = Coastal Highway: Silent Burglar (Early - Midgame)

Main challenge: Don't die of dehydration (you'll need to find pretty much every soda can and all toilet water) and don't get eaten by wolves.

Playstyle: Sneaky Nomad. Playing in a predictive and careful way is very much advised.

State of knowledge: Character is starting to learn how to craft medicine and tools.

Rules in detail:

Move on to Coastal Highway on Day 3 and survive there until day 22.

Sleep every night in a different building. You're not allowed to ever enter a building twice.

The only food and drinks allowed are premade ones (toilet water, soda, canned food) and fish/meat from fridges or ovens.

You are NOT allowed to melt any snow! You are of course NOT allowed to dehydrate yourself on purpose (hibernation exploit with water instead of food).

You're not allowed to ever use rifle or bow for self-defense or hunting.

You're furthermore not allowed to use flares, torches, campfires or decoys to get rid of wolves.

You are allowed to avoid (distance or sneaking) and outrun wolves. But should you fail to escape them, you're not allowed to fight back (=klick lmb) during the wolf attack. (Don't worry, you'll survive nevertheless).

You may now pick up weapons and tools (rifle, knife, hatchet, hacksaw, can opener, prybar, etc).

You may now craft tools (snares, fishing hooks, bows and arrows) at the crafting table.

You may now craft and use medicine from plants/fungi/lichen. Reishi and rosehip tea may only be boiled with toilet water ofc.

Nightmare rule: You're only allowed to take one item (tool/weapon/flare/ammunition box/box of matches/clothes) per building/ice fishing shack/car, so choose very carefully. (Scrap metal, cloth, single bullets, toilet water, soda and food don't count and may be looted without any limit). You're not allowed to reenter a building and exchange things.

Tips for Coastal Highway:

[spoil]Sneak a lot. Loot & inhabit buildings with toilet water first and save part of the water & soda you find for resource-poor wooden huts. Remember to pick up one or two sewing kits and at least 20 matches if you want to do the Abandonned Mine challenge and Pleasant valley nightmare challenge later on. If you want to use a bow & arrows in Pleasant valley, don't forget to craft them during your nights in Quonset and the fishing camp huts.[/spoil]

When moving on to Pleasant Valley on Day 22, you're allowed to take all your belongings with you. However, the number of coal pieces that you're allowed to bring mustn't be bigger than 10.

Day 22 - Abandonned mine challenge

Cross the Abandonned Mine with light from matches only. (You'll need about 12-15 matches if you know the mine by heart, pick up coal and other items on the run and never get lost.)

Day 22-36 = Pleasant Valley: Weatherproofed Hunter (Midgame)

Main challenge: Complete all sub-challenges within 15 days. Don't freeze at night and don't get killed by bears.

Playstyle: Big Game Hunter on steroids. Good aiming skills with bow or rifle (for instant kills) and a clever use of flares, decoys and rocks are pretty helpful in order not to get mauled.

State of knowledge: Character has become completely self-sufficient and knows how to craft everything.

Rules in detail:

You're allowed to craft everything you like.

You're allowed to use any weapon and tool you like.

Using flares, torches, decoys, and campfires to fend off wildlife is allowed.

All kinds of food are allowed. Melting snow is allowed.

While in Pleasant Valley, you must complete each of the following sub-challenges:

A) Spend every night (dusk till dawn) outside. Staying inside after sunset (while crafting, melting snow, etc.) is not allowed. Sleeping in caves isn't allowed unless you killed a bear on this very day. Sleeping in hollow trees, cars or barns is allowed.

B) Seek your bunker location. You're allowed to sleep one night inside to celebrate your find.

C) Kill four different bears in four different locations during four consecutive days (1bear/day, spend the night in its cave). If the bear runs away bleeding, you need to retrieve its corpse to assure it died. If you fail to kill your daily bear (>24h between two bear kills), your run is over.

Remember that you need to complete challenges A-C (and all your crafting/repairing activities) prior to day 36. You have to leave Pleasant valley on day 37, no matter whether you've already crafted everything you want or not.

Nightmare rule:

Also complete challenge D) Craft all clothes (mittens, boots, pants, coat) and two snares while in PV.

If you go for the nightmare challenge, your timetable will be extremely tight, so plan your actions VERY thoroughly.

Tips for Pleasant Valley:

[spoil]Use coal to compensate temperature drops during blizzard nights. You will need to cure guts and pelts for some days before you can start crafting, so remember to kill enough wolves, deer and rabbits during your first three days in Pleasant valley if you go for the nightmare challenge! You should also consider that you'll ofc. need 4-5 days to finally craft everything.[/spoil]

When moving on to Mystery lake on day 37, you have to leave EVERYTHING behind.

The only exceptions are: the clothes you wear, your bedroll, one hatchet (at 25% condition), a magnifying lens, 20 matches, 2 fishing hooks, 2 snares, 5 old man's beard lichen bandages, 2 reishi teas, 2 rosehip teas, 2 tins of coffee, 20 sticks, 2l of water and 2000kcal food.

You're not allowed to bring anything else (food/wood/weapons/additional medicine or clothes, etc).

Day 37 - Carter River challenge

Prove that you're a gorge(ous) sprinter and cross the Carter River transition areas (cave+winding river+dam area) in less than 2 hours.

Day 37~? = Mystery Lake: Into the Long Dark (Endgame)

Main challenge: Brave the biting cold as long as possible. You'll have to struggle for every single day and need to use your little resources very thoughtfully.

Playstyle: Lonesome Eremit. Pure, desperate endgame experience from a time when running out of resources was still possible.

State of knowledge: Character knows how to craft everything, but has run out of resources.

Rules in detail:

You have to sleep every night inside Dave's quiet Clearing (= the laketrail cave). You may briefly enter the Camp office to drop fresh guts and craft snares, but NOT for sleeping or warming up. Other interiors may not be entered at all.

You're not allowed to ever pick up ANY item or resource except fuel (sticks, firewood, etc), cattail stalks and guts/meat from animals. This is meant to simulate Endgame, just image you used up literally everything (including scrap metal, cloth, etc) hundreds of days ago.

You're not allowed to craft anything but snares.

You're only allowed to make fires with the magnifying lens and the 20 matches you brought.

You're not allowed to ever repair the one hatchet you brought from Coastal Highway (no scrap metal anyway). If you brought a hatchet with more than 25% condition, you have to throw it away as soon as it has lost 25% condition (e.g. a 38% hatchets needs to be abandonned at 13% condition).

You are only allowed to repair your clothes or bedroll with your 2 fishing tackles and cloth that you acquire by shredding your own clothes. (E.g. repair your heavy wool sweater with cloth from your ruined scarf). It is intended that you will unavoidably freeze to death eventually as your clothes deteriorate further and further.

If you run out of lichen bandages, you're allowed to tare your clothes apart to craft normal bandages to stop bleeding. However, you're not allowed to do anything about infections (except using the two reishi teas you brought ofc).

You're only allowed to consume cattail stalks, fish and meat. Wolf-deer combos are fine as long as you handfight the wolves. However, you're of course NOT allowed to escape into buildings or use campfires or torches to scare away wolves from deer carcasses (to prevent infinite meat without fights).

Starvation hibernation and similar exploits are forbidden of course. Sleep as long as you like, but never starve or dehydrate yourself on purpose.

You're allowed to drop decoys but you mustn't retrieve them (imagine the wolf would actually eat it).

You're allowed to use torches and campfires to fend of wolves as long as you don't abuse this to acquire deer or rabbit meat.

Nightmare mode suggestion: Only 2 matches for you. If you're out of matches, you may only use the magnifying lens to light fires.

Tips for Mystery Lake:

[spoil]Collect as many sticks as possible every day (80+) and try to keep fires going most of the night (you're very likely to freeze during nocturnal blizzards otherwise). Consider how you want to use your hatchet VERY thoroughly. Big wood piles won't help you much when you're starving, but large meat or fish storages aren't helpful if you freeze during a blizzard either. If you go for the nightmare challenge, make sure to use your magnifying lens as often as possible to get a fire going every day. God be with you on cloudy days. [/spoil]

I've completed this meta-challenge three times so far (once without and twice with nightmare rules) to make sure everything is doable. Should you honestly find some tasks or limitations to be impossible to deal with, please give me feedback about it. Some numbers or rules might still need a bit of tweaking. ^^

If someone has any suggestions to make this meta-challenge even more fun to play, please post them. I'm open to almost every suggestion as long as it doesn't make this challenge easier. ;p

That's everything so far I guess. Have fun playing, I hope you find it enjoyable.

And never forget: ALL MEN MUST DIE!

Scyzara, that's great! Damn the fact that I currently haven't got the time to try this out, but I will be eager to read from whoever tries it...

wow buddy, nice work!

I tried it yesterday but failed again and again because i violated a few of the rules. It is hard to remember all the different rules and challenges.

Thats why i try the easy to remember ones like "you are not allowed to enter any building"

but anyway, really well done

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it. You're certainly right that there are a whole lot of rules to keep for each challenge, that's why I made the diagram in the first place.

You might try to print it on a sheet of paper and and use it like a cheat sheet while playing. It's probably easier to keep the rules if you don't have to learn everything by heart and have the option to look up all details whenever you need them.^^

Really interesting stuff, may have to give this a try myself some time -- Though Stalker usually proves difficult enough for me. I'm not a hardened survivor like some of you guys!

Thanks for taking the time to share and detail your experience, and congratulations on completing it yourself.