What to do on Survival mode?

[What a save!]

Hi.
I am enjoying the game after Episodes 1 and 2 and I am now trying my luck with survival mode.

The thing is, after I managed to gather food and everything I need to make fire and keep myself warm, is it really anything else to do or to go to?

I know there are plenty places to explore I have not yet found, but honestly, you explore places when you are looking for something. If you have all you need you would usually stay in place.

Maybe I need the motivation I had during the episodes where a character send you here or there to accomplish whatever mission, but now I am a bit aimless.

Is it there a goal to reach on survival mode, like escaping from Great Bear Island, get rescued, or something similar?


PS: Some of you will suggest me to try a harder / more difficult mode to keep me busy. It will be challenging for sure and will force me to keep searching for survival opportunities, but this doesn't answer my question. If I mastered the most difficult mode, my question would still be the same.

[IvantheFormidable]

Survival mode is quite similar to any other sandbox survival mode in other games. The goal is to survive, and whatever else you want to do is up to you. There is no end goal.

Motivation in these modes often comes from the player and what they want to do in a particular run. Exploration keeps some busy. I find inventory stockpiling and setting up primary and secondary hideouts to be quite entertaining.

I'd suggest checking out a recent post by a regular about their adventure of living 100 days in each region. Quite the difficult and interesting self made challenge.

Also, your food will run out eventually, so you'll have to do something :)

Edit: But yes, others will probably suggest a higher difficulty mode. And from the sounds of it, that would be the right thing to do. Attempting to achieve the same comfortable status on Loper takes a lot more time and dedication than it does on the lower difficulties, which would solve your issue about an end goal temporarily, as it would take a while for you to even have the luxury of thinking about an end goal. And then once you're able to pose the same question again, having mastered the highest stock difficulty (had to say 'stock' before the DMC crowd shows up, lol), you'll already have a couple hundred hours in the survival mode.

[listless]

A number of the achievements might count as goals since they give you something to work for.

[SBlack]

For the beginning just exploration on Voyager or Stalker is a worthwhile goal. There is a lot more to see than in story mode.

Otherwise it's a sandbox and it depends on if you like such games and can motivate yourself. They all suffer from the same issue. I usually don't like open world/sandbox games too much, but in TLD there is about 100-150 days worth of content for me. Then I've been everywhere and it becomes a grind.
But if you can motivate yourself you can spend hundreds of days in a game. You can move around and survive for a while in different places so it doesn't get entirely stale. There are corners away from civilization that offer more of a challenge. There are caves you can live in that have more resources nearby than some seemingly nice house.

As for difficulty modes, Interloper does indeed have some goals in the early game because you don't have high end clothing and no weapons. So unlike in the other modes, crafting is a necessity. But once you're established you can be relatively comfortable there too.

The end game is indeed lacking. Part of the reason is that survival mode was originally just a demonstration and testbed for story mode. That it became so popular was a bit of an accident. Hopefully one day they'll add more, but for now story mode is taking away resources from that

[Nanc]

Try some working thru the Feats & Badges.

If you like to have a goal, try some of TLD's Challenges.

https://thelongdark.fandom.com/wiki/Challenge

Plus you can check your overall progress and the progress of other players by looking at the Global Achievements list for TLD:
https://steamcommunity.com/stats/305620/achievements/

[Tohtori Leka]

Some end game goal of escaping the island or getting rescued on survival would be really nice. But not if it just automatically unlocks after a time. It should be something the player needs to do in order to achieve it and would require the player to explore the island to find things they need to do it. Like maybe you could build a raft but to do that you need to find enough ropes to tie it together and then you'd need to haul all the materials someplace and then build the thing and finally push it to the sea after you've gathered enough water and food to survive the trip.

But to answer OP, you should try the things suggested but from what you say I suspect you are like me and many others who won't find the motivation to do them and will get bored before achieving the goals but don't worry about it. There's no reason to try and force yourself to enjoy the game. Just don't play it for as long as you feel you don't want to and then pick it up again when you do feel like playing and start a new game. Then you'll enjoy it for some time again. And of course there will be new episodes coming.

[IvantheFormidable]

Originally posted by Tohtori Leka:

Some end game goal of escaping the island or getting rescued on survival would be really nice. But not if it just automatically unlocks after a time. It should be something the player needs to do in order to achieve it and would require the player to explore the island to find things they need to do it. Like maybe you could build a raft but to do that you need to find enough ropes to tie it together and then you'd need to haul all the materials someplace and then build the thing and finally push it to the sea after you've gathered enough water and food to survive the trip.

Personally, I think that any end goal that involves escaping the island should remain as a challenge, rather than being integrated into the survival mode. There's a morbid charm in death being the only end.

[abonamente]

Sandbox: a box that contains sand for children to play in. I think this is little known in the digital era - just observation, no sarcasm.

I believe that anyone posing the question in the title should try a real sandbox before deciding whether a digital/virtual sandbox sort of game would be fun for them or not. It is a lot easier and faster to learn the facts from that experience than from forums.

My last TLD sandbox experience, inspired by a recent screenshots thread - create a custom photographer mode and wander relatively safely through the world, just trying to get the perfect shot. Find the nicest scenery, the best angle, the best light or weather conditions for my trophy to be displayed on my desktop. I miss the days when I had time to do that in real life. And I barely remember a time when I used to skip school acting sick, after a night spent in my chemical photo lab, trying to get the perfect image on paper :)

[Mauro4691]

Originally posted by IvantheFormidable:

Originally posted by Tohtori Leka:

Some end game goal of escaping the island or getting rescued on survival would be really nice. But not if it just automatically unlocks after a time. It should be something the player needs to do in order to achieve it and would require the player to explore the island to find things they need to do it. Like maybe you could build a raft but to do that you need to find enough ropes to tie it together and then you'd need to haul all the materials someplace and then build the thing and finally push it to the sea after you've gathered enough water and food to survive the trip.

Personally, I think that any end goal that involves escaping the island should remain as a challenge, rather than being integrated into the survival mode. There's a morbid charm in death being the only end.

I had questioned this a while ago. but I think this is not in question. having to cross a steep and cold trail needing a lot of resources and abilities and then sighting civilization.

[IvantheFormidable]

Originally posted by Mauro_eletronica:

Originally posted by IvantheFormidable:

Personally, I think that any end goal that involves escaping the island should remain as a challenge, rather than being integrated into the survival mode. There's a morbid charm in death being the only end.

I had questioned this a while ago. but I think this is not in question. having to cross a steep and cold trail needing a lot of resources and abilities and then sighting civilization.

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite following. What's not in question here? That survival shouldn't have an end goal of "escaping", or that it should?

[SBlack]

I just want more stuff to do and change things up now and then, rather than escape and end it. Easier said than done though. More things to craft usually make things even easier

[Mauro4691]

Originally posted by IvantheFormidable:

Originally posted by Mauro_eletronica:

I had questioned this a while ago. but I think this is not in question. having to cross a steep and cold trail needing a lot of resources and abilities and then sighting civilization.

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite following. What's not in question here? That survival shouldn't have an end goal of "escaping", or that it should?

yes

[IvantheFormidable]

Originally posted by Mauro_eletronica:

Originally posted by IvantheFormidable:

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite following. What's not in question here? That survival shouldn't have an end goal of "escaping", or that it should?

yes

What?

[Mauro4691]

Originally posted by IvantheFormidable:

Originally posted by Mauro_eletronica:

yes

What?

I'm sorry, I don't understand English very well. yes I think there should be a really hard way to escape.

[IvantheFormidable]

Originally posted by Mauro_eletronica:

Originally posted by IvantheFormidable:

What?

I'm sorry, I don't understand English very well. yes I think there should be a really hard way to escape.

Ah, gotcha, thanks for the clarification. I think it would make for an interesting and very long challenge, but I disagree that survival mode should have some end goal. I think having more to do in the end game would be a nice compromise.

[Martial.Lore]

I think an end goal for survival would be feasible but it would have to be something to really stretch players' capacity to utilize the game's survival mechanics over the long term. Something like 100% mapping (cartographer achievement) for a lower difficulty setting, or 1000 day survival on the hardest difficulty. With an option to remain on the island rather than board the rescue boat/chopper or whatever, a "fixed" ending to survival mode could satisfy everyone, particularly given the increasing scarcity of non-renewable resources as time goes on.

For example, I am essentially playing for the first time on Voyager difficulty, visiting the maps for the first time (I still haven't visited TWM yet and have only dipped my toes into HRV). My goal in this game is to map the entirety of the island and become reasonably familiar with the maps in order to play at a harder difficulty (perhaps interloper, if I can satisfy myself that I sufficiently understand the most hardcore survival mechanics by the end of this game).