Is there a way to avoid the monster?

[Breeding Medicine]

No matter if I have fuel or not he always gets out of his cave ( like a discord mod), normal difficulty. I am not running, just walking. Flashlight on.

I've seen a thread on how people complete the game and never see him, I just wonder what makes me so attractive to him, yes I am single right now, yet it's not like I am calling him in . . .

[bueskyting]

I just started playing, my suggestion is to block all the holes u see (heavy barrels and boxes), u'll get achievement for that, also as far as I know he can't break through, more blocked holes less encounter.

EDIT: Be careful when moving them, it makes noises and attracts him, so in the beginning you need to be careful.

[Breeding Medicine]

Originally posted by Un Vrai Chien:

I just started playing, my suggestion is to block all the holes u see (heavy barrels and boxes), u'll get achievement for that, also as far as I know he can't break through, more blocked holes less encounter.

EDIT: Be careful when moving them, it makes noises and attracts him, so in the beginning you need to be careful.

You sure? I think I've been browsing through guides today and I think I've seen an image of monster breaking these. Normal difficulty?

[bueskyting]

On easy, sometimes he breaks them, mostly if the monster came from another hole and going back through the blocked one.

[Sokurah]

I just finished. Normal as well. I stopped using the flashlght pretty fast tbh. The sound attrackts the beast.

If you dont have the generator on, you can still find your way around. And usually you find a lot of fuel. Make sure you only save when you found a good way to make the next step. So you dont waste fuel.

It sometimes turns into a trial and error game, killing the tension and making it more annoying than scary.

If you crouch and dont make any noise, it still sometimes shows up but if you stay silent, you really need bad luck for him to get you. If its not there usually you can just walk normally. If it starts running thru the vents crouch and look for a good spot or retreat a bit and wait until it's gone again.

Everything you do to progress usually makes noise. Break doors, blow up stuff, throw a molotov. It will show up and these are the situations you need to get thru. Use gas when needed, use the revolver or later the shotgun, use granades. Stay or go away from the source of the noise you make as far as possible. Avoiding it is usually the best way.

Good luck down there.

[CrunchYAAAAAN]

Crouch-walk everywhere if you're not confident yet in your ability to juke the monster. There are hiding spots but he'll learn your habits. The first time you crouch behind a box or hide in a wardrobe it'll likely work, every time afterwards and he'll start checking those spots first.

Learn the layout of the Bunker with the lights on and plan short travels. Keep the lights off when you're just supply hunting or grabbing items from the lockers. There are ways to get almost unlimited fuel with some creativity but I don't want to spoil the experience of the game.

Above all fear the monster reasonably. Noise is an enemy and a friend, there are five thousand empty bottles, if he's close throw one far away and then get outta there in a different direction. Don't just sit completely still when you know for sure he's about to approach you. Use the gun/grenades and remember that you run faster than he can. Not by a lot, but just enough and he's a bit slow around corners.

And as Sokurah said, if you realize you have to use a brick to open a door or shoot a lock, it's ideal to have the lights on and have your hiding spot planned in advance and a weapon ready in case ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan.

Don't give up! I felt completely hopeless the first two hours! Now it's a complete blast, like we've both learned the rules and every time I leave the bunker the power dynamic is always shifting, it's the most fun I've had with a simulated monster yet!

[sidneyc1990]

Originally posted by Un Vrai Chien:

I just started playing, my suggestion is to block all the holes u see (heavy barrels and boxes), u'll get achievement for that, also as far as I know he can't break through, more blocked holes less encounter.

EDIT: Be careful when moving them, it makes noises and attracts him, so in the beginning you need to be careful.

He can break through. It happens if he tries to go through the same hole several times. It was also demonstrated in the first scene when you meet the injured survivor - he breaks through the box and grabs him.

[Darth Juggernaut]

When the lights are on, don't use the flashlight if you can help it - as mentioned earlier in this thread, the noise will make him say hello! If you see the dust, see flashing lights, or hear the noise from him moving above you, crouch walk or stop to prevent him from paying you a visit via wall hole. He will move on in a second or two and you can continue on. :D

[SexyPanther]

One additional note is that sticks are only useful as a building material for the torch. I had thought that you might be able to use it to lock a wooden door without proper locking mechanisms (lowering it on hooks on the door and the wall) but this was not the case.

[fourfourtwo79]

On normal the beast isn't quite that aggressive, tbh. Hard is a tad different.

On normal, I later on went through sections for scavenging runs (or rather walks, no crouching/sneaking) with the generator enabled (more than enough fuel if you found the source for it), and oft barely saw it. I even reloaded to check and RAN like hell all over the place, pulling on the flashlight like mad sometimes.

It's mostly only when it's close (there's audio and visual cues) that it would hear you and come out to check. That's where the alarm bells should start ringing and you going "shhh". Maybe even putting away the flashlight. New Game+ reveals that there's differnt awareness levels though. Guess on easy there must be fairly long stretches of not seeing the beast whatsoever unless you make all kinds of noise.

I think I liked that dynamic more than in say, Alien:Isolation. There are sections in Isolation where you can do whatever you want, the Alien will always be an aggressive presence and come out to look for you. It's also always right on your nose. This creates the impression that what you do wouldn't matter much either way (in those sections). And it also diminishes the impact some via overexposure. Even in the movie, the suspense is always that you KNOW that monster is somewhere out there. That makes you hold your breath. Then it shows up briefly, does its thing and disappears again and that cycle starts anew.

Frictional wrote a HUGE blog entry back when Isolation came out. I think they learned their lessons here in what they were personally trying to achieve with their eventually own Stalker presence type of game.

this super focus on being a horror simulation, also starts showing cracks in the game as a whole. For instance, just like in older games of the same genre, Alien: Isolation can be very frustrating. The tension built up from being 20 minutes from your last save, quickly turns to anger and frustration when you are killed seemingly out of nowhere. While still vague (which is essential for giving rise to the right mind model), it is predictable enough for you to be able to get past any threats if you are just careful and cunning enough. Still, this part is divisive, as can be seen by the review scores and I have myself felt extremely frustrated with the game from time to time.

There is a certain sweet spot in how to approach situations properly. Too aggressive, and you will die a lot. Too passive and the game’s pacing gets messed up. The trick is to be able to move forward at a steady pace and still be cautious enough to avoid death. A way to fix this would have been to make the alien AI better adapt to the player’s style, so if they hide a lot in lockers, it backs off quicker and keep things interesting and the pace at the right level.

https://frictionalgames.com/2014-10-thoughts-on-alien-isolation-and-horror-simulation/

[SexyPanther]

Originally posted by fourfourtwo79:

Truncated...

That was a really interesting read. Thanks for posting that. I personally felt (at least on Normal) that The Bunker was more consistent in it's monster attack mechanics than Alien Isolation. That game felt far more like a dice roll on whether or not the alien would say, find me hiding in a locker. There were moments in The Bunker I died but I never felt they were as cheap or frustrating and I could usually attribute my losses to not being cautious enough or forgetting to take X or Y mechanic into consideration.

If Frictional learned from what they saw in Alien Isolation, then it makes perfect sense to me that they would make The Bunker a series of smaller, interconnected areas that you could get a feel for in terms of navigating potential threats, rather than massive levels where dying would set you back a lot of time as well as be harder to learn from in terms of navigation (due to level size and the constant presence of the alien making taking in your surroundings a bit harder to do).

I'm always fond of the Portal approach to game design, the "less is more" philosophy. Make things as tight, interesting, and memorable as you can and not including things just because you can. In the case of Portal, this was all they could do considering a modest budget. But it is the same exact principle in movies. Every shot, every camera angle included in a film is done a certain way for a particular reason like eliciting a mood, emotion, stressing a narrative point, etc. The slightly tilted camera angle which is common in today's horror movies I believe was pioneered in the original Twilight Zone tv series, which IMO still holds up despite being in black and white.

I'm a huge fan of Frictional and feel that they, more than any other developer I can remember, learn from their previous games and are always looking to refine their systems in subsequent projects. When I fell in love with Amnesia: The Dark Descent, there were so many things I could point to and say was brilliant and couldn't be done better, that I thought all I'd want in a sequel would be the same game just with different environments and story. Most big developers I think would have done just that, whereas Frictional has shown a willingness to take chances and not fall into the trap of predictability.

That takes guts, a lot of reflection, and a desire to innovate. Having played literally 1,000+ PC game from start to finish, and possessing a certificate in game design, I really, really wish I could sit in a room with the developers and pitch a few ideas (for free, just because I love the genre). However, as much as I'd love that, I think I'm better off not knowing anything they plan to do next, because the excitement of not knowing is what makes me like these games to begin with.