Best difficulty for learning?

[Blessed Evelyn]

Hello. I really like this game. I've already sunk in 14 hours and completed the first chapter in Wintermute, and played a couple of hours in Survival. The thing is-- I still suck at it. Should I choose a lighter difficulty to ease myself in better or should I hit it hard with Interloper and keep at the grindstone?

[Alaqella]

Voyager - plenty of loot, manageable weather and wolves are more just an annoyance rather than a real threat :)

[SBlack]

Interloper really requires knowledge of the maps and game systems. It's so cold that you can't explore as you go.

Play at least Voyageur. If the masses of wolves don't annoy you you can also try Stalker. Once you have some decent clothing, the Stalker weather isn't really a challenge (as in you will rarely be freezing)

[Blessed Evelyn]

Originally posted by Alaqella:

Voyager - plenty of loot, manageable weather and wolves are more just an annoyance rather than a real threat :)

Probably a better idea than mine.

Originally posted by SteveS:

Interloper really requires knowledge of the maps and game systems. It's so cold that you can't explore as you go.

Oh, good to know.

Originally posted by SteveS:

Play at least Voyageur. If the masses of wolves don't annoy you you can also try Stalker. Once you have some decent clothing, the Stalker weather isn't really a challenge (as in you will rarely be freezing)

Thank you!

[Pagan]

Definitely do not jump into Interloper just yet. When it first came out, we were all dying within the first few days. It wasn't until learning all the tricks where we started lasting past 30 days and on into the 100-200+ range.

[sockpuppet12421]

Try voyager on that map and see how it goes. Else do loper, it makes you better for other settings quickly.

[IFIYGD]

Pilgrim to learn the maps without fear of predators.

Voyageur to leanr the maps and game mechanics with hostile wildlife, but weather not so ba,d loot tables rich with loot, and not be overrun with hostile trying to eat your face off, once you learn how to avoid, evade, distract and ambush/hunt them.

Once you fel comfortable with your playstyle, the game mechanics, and how things feel to you, play the experience mode you like. They are not linear difficulty jumps, each mode is tuned for an experience. And custom settings are there for you to tune the game to your unique likings, though I recommend not trying them until you know the game better. They can be very confusing, and not interact or do what you think you set them to do.

Just prepare to die, often. Learn from each death, take lessons away of how you died and what to try next time to not die the same way. It's not an easy game to learn, nor easy to master. And the only win state is living for another day. It requires a whole new way of looking at a game, and why you play, and what "winning" meant to you, uniquely.

Welcome to The Long Dark!

Stay warm, stay safe, and enjoy your stay. :)

[EagleHunter]

Originally posted by IFIYGD:

Pilgrim to learn the maps without fear of predators.

Voyageur to leanr the maps and game mechanics with hostile wildlife, but weather not so ba,d loot tables rich with loot, and not be overrun with hostile trying to eat your face off, once you learn how to avoid, evade, distract and ambush/hunt them.

Once you fel comfortable with your playstyle, the game mechanics, and how things feel to you, play the experience mode you like. They are not linear difficulty jumps, each mode is tuned for an experience. And custom settings are there for you to tune the game to your unique likings, hough I recommend not trying them until you know the game better. They can be very confusing, and not interact or do what you think you set them to do.

Just prepare to die, often. Learn from each death, take lessons away of how you died and what to try next time to not die the same way. It's not an easy game to learn, no easy to master. And the only win state is living for another day. It requores a whole new way of looking at a game, and why you play, and what "winning" meant to you, uniquely.

Welcome to The Long Dark!

Stay warm, stay safe, and enjoy your stay. :)

Thank you for advice! Very helpful! :)

[Kauffy]

I would recommend NOT playing Pilgrim at all. It's artificially easy and almost a cheat for discovering the maps. At that rate, you might as well download maps from the internet. For a better experience, I'd recommend playing on Voyageur-- you will discover that the game evolves over time, so this is a good way to get exposed to all of the items in the game, and to also have some experience of the later stages of the game. Jumping in on Stalker or Interloper is just going to be frustrating and unrewarding. The game has too many subtleties that will really eff you, and given how hard you'd have to work to get anywhere in Stalker+ in the beginning, it would be very frustrating.

I'd say that Voyageur is probably around the same difficulty as the story missions, except there are no NPCs, and therefore no magic fires.

[SBlack]

Pilgrim teaches you too many bad habits. Having wolves run away from you does you no favors. On Voyager they don't much damage. So properly armed and with somewhat decent clothing getting into a struggle is big deal. Even on Stalker only back to back wolf struggles are dangerous. A single one not so much

[SnakeshyperTTV/Kick]

Custom beacuse it you can make the game easy.

[Pagan]

I mainly play Interloper, but I Do Not feel that Pilgrim is cheating in any way. It is a way for you to learn to play that is very forgiving. Once you are comfortable, then you can step up. As a man who played only Stalker, before Interloper came out, while trying to learn the maps, I can tell you: learning the maps on harder difficulties will take a very long time. But do what you think is best.

[[BKM]Harry]

I can imagine people buying TLD start up a survival game choose interloper.... spawn at some random place, know nothing of how the game works let alone where they are and die soon after.

I mean if someone did this and stuck at it, that would be a tremendous achievement. it would be painful to watch though.

I started on pilgrim and got bored real quick, then played stalker for 275 days and got bored. and i have only played interloper since with the rare visit to my stalker run between updates.

I find on interloper you have to be cautious and daring at the same time if that make sense, too cautious and you will die slowly, too daring and you will die quick.

[IFIYGD]

Originally posted by BKMHarry:

...too cautious and you will die slowly, too daring and you will die quick.

That is actually one of the best ways to describe Loper that I have seen recently.

[PBR]

Originally posted by Cheese:

Hello. I really like this game. I've already sunk in 14 hours and completed the first chapter in Wintermute, and played a couple of hours in Survival. The thing is-- I still suck at it. Should I choose a lighter difficulty to ease myself in better or should I hit it hard with Interloper and keep at the grindstone?

Interloper is extremely punishing, stay away until you've mastered Stalker. You're very fragile on Interloper, loot is rare and lower quality. Knives and hatchets don't spawn so you have to craft them, that assumes you can find a hacksaw, hammer, coal, cloth and make your way to DP or FM. Play Voyager, get good, play Stalker, get better then maybe.

Couple pro tips, should make things easier. Never go anywhere without your bedroll. Always have at least 2-3 bandages so you don't bleed to death. Always pick up sticks unless you're really heavy. Never light a fire with a match, light a torch with the match then select the torch instead of a match. This way if you fail you can keep trying off one match. Never sleep outside for more than an hour at a time. Cars can save your life, you can sleep in them but without a fire they're pretty cold. Build a fire by the car but not right by the door you're going to go in and out of. Don't carry everything all the time, establish a base on each map and leave anything you don't need immediately.

[SBlack]

Originally posted by JeebusChrist:

stay away until you've mastered Stalker.

I jumped from Voyageur to Interloper without issues. Stalker isn't really an intermediate difficulty. The weather is not *that* much worse than Voyageur except at the beginning with the crappy clothing. And Interloper's wolf numbers and spawns are actually more comparable to Voyageur