My Cheat Death Experience

[Alcoholocaust]

Holy cow, I have to share this... I'm playing a long-running Interloper game -- almost 750 days in. I was in Keeper's Pass North, near the Blackrock entrance. Got surprised by a wolf, unexpectedly lost the struggle and got killed from full health and good armor. Not happy about that, but I figured, okay, what the heck I'll check out the Cheat Death mechanic for my first time.

I pick the Short Term penalty and the Risky Spawn, and, boy, do I regret that!

I respawned in Blackrock -- which is where I wanted to be, as I had bases at the prison and at the Old Substation. Unfortunately, for me, I respawned just north of Whistling Perch. I don't know this part of the map that well, but once I determined where I was, you figure, I should be in decent shape. You would be wrong.

I respawned with a temporary 50% health penalty -- fine, I knew that would happen. I knew I'd be without my backpack. I spawned with 3 matches, a cup of coffee, a cup of Reishi tea, a piece of cedar, and all of my equipped clothing items at between 25% and 49% durability. Fine, I can deal.

Oh but the catch -- I start with about 25% fatigue, 25% water, about 2% warmth, less than 5% food. Did I mention I died at night? So I respawn just after midnight, and within minutes, the snowstorm hits. This is a death-within-5-minutes situation in the best of cases. I proceed thru an explore-and-reload cycle several times to try to get to a safe spot... it predictably does not go well.

Oh, and, oops, I respawned in cougar territory -- I can hear the howls coming from my left, towards No Road Cave, so I can't go that way. If I go east from my spawn point towards Wedge Cave, oh, hey, there's a bear there. If I go south toward's Bricklayer's Retreat, there's a full strength timber wolf pack between me and the house. The *only* other route I could take was to the Fool's Corner rope climb, then down and a little south to a cave with no bedding.

Yeah, I just barely got to that cave, got a fire started, and was less than 1% from dying, then quit out before I croaked. Now I'm scratching my head trying to figure out if it's possible to salvage this run, or if I should pull an old backup save file.... if I wasn't so far into this run, I wouldn't do it.


The lesson: don't take the Risky Spawn, boys and girls.

[Deaths]

o0

[Bobywan]

Thanks for sharing your experience with cheat death.
Did you have a cougar knife ? it's the best defense against a wolf during a struggle.
Were you tired during the struggle ? That can lead to losing quite often.

[Alcoholocaust]

Nah, I had a hunting knife -- which, amazingly, I have never, ever gotten before in any other Interloper run. I do have a cougar's claw in my base back in Timberwolf Mountain, but I hadn't gotten around to getting the knife made, since I was so far from a forge. Usually I carry an improvised axe too but in this instance I had left it elsewhere.

Although I don't particularly *like* save scumming, I had too much time invested in this run to let it go, so I ending up pulling an older save from Windows Backup -- the file date is from last Friday, so I lost a week's worth of game progress. Not great but better than losing the entire run.

Heh, the only way this respawn could have been worse was if I had spawned near a moose, too!

[LoKi³]

I just used it. After 20 hours of building my Character up for a push into the Far territory which i purchased a few days ago. I wanted to be ready to explore the new maps for the first time, really looking forward to it.
Passing through the canyon road to the Airfield. i stopped to boil a tin of peaches that had a 80 quality rating. These gave me food poisoning OBVIOUSLY, as 'BOILED' fruit typically does.
Then a massive blizzard blew in literally minutes later, my character freezing fast despite having some of the best kit in the game. I backtracked fast to find somewhere to hide from the storm, managed to just get back to the Railroad house in the previous zone. Almost dead. Needed to sleep... SUDDENLY.... 'CABIN FEVER' so cant sleep in doors.
Cant sleep in the cars outside because of the hypothermia.

Dead.

Why would a man nearly frozen to death and suffering from sickness not be able to sleep in a bed inside by a open fire while a blizzard rages outside?

I've often thought this game cheats. Something about the algorithm needs a re-balance.

I think this game actively tries to kill the players and sometimes it feels forced and obvious.

-- So

I just used the new cheat death feature. I chose, spawn near where i died and short term penalty.

I was re-spawned back in the airfield (ok), but i had nothing in my backpack, all cloths were basic starter cloths damaged and torn, all my skills reset, cooking, riffle, fire-starting, etc... all back to 1.
Every discovery was gone, all the keys and notes gone.
It was literally a complete reset... a new game. The only thing that remained were the time play stats telling me my current play through was 41 days and how many different places id visited or things id done, the world was black and white no colour.
So honestly what is the point of the cheat death feature... Its just a reset.. only worse.

So I'm standing there thinking whats the point, it being maybe 3 minutes after re-spawning and quickly looking at my situation, i have not moved. standing in the same spot.

Then I hear a sound behind me.... and its a bear.

DEAD.
(reading up, this means my 'recovery' bag is gone)

I've played over 300 hours in this game and im not bad at it. I was doing well.
The entire entrance into the Airfield is silly. No resources or shelter, funnelled the entire way.. and the walk is long.
Get hit by a mega blizzard, well. Tough luck.

p.s
Cabin fever needs a re-look. It should be mitigated if other situations exist.
Really silly.

[Alcoholocaust]

Oh I feel your pain... I can't count the number of times I was doing really well and got sucker punched by one bad move or one encounter gone wrong. I've got 3500+ hours on this game (been playing for years, it's my favorite game, and some of those hours are just with the game paused while I do other things around the house, but still), and that includes a lot of cussing at bad or "unfair" deaths. I do agree that Cabin Fever is wonky and needs adjusting.

I didn't look at my skills after respawning, but I'll keep that in mind if I use Cheat Death again. The progress I lost today included about 4 days or so of fishing in Timberwolf to build up a large store of cooked fish, and, more painfully, moving 8 batteries from Blackrock Prison and vicinity thru Keeper's Path North and to the Ice Cave at the south end of that zone. Even with a travois, that was a shlep I don't look forward to repeating.

[SteelFire]

I've used cheat death a couple times, in different runs, and have never seen skills or anything in the journal reset. That sounds like a bug.

[LoKi³]

TBH the cheat death feature doesn't interest me. Bug or not bug causing my experience.
The perma-death system of this game is what makes it exciting. So i wont be using it, going forward. Having just purchased The Far Territory after a break from the game, i was just curious how it worked.

I think i'm just disappointed that this game still essentially appears to cheat and has balancing issues after all this time.

If the game can throw you a curve ball at the least appropriate time, it will. I often bet with myself that X or Y will now happen because this circumstance is in effect... and it often does.
(maybe its just me)

If i make a mistake in a game and die, i can learn from it. Fair enough.
But the way i died above just simply isn't fair and makes me lose interest in playing even after shelling out for the DLC.

[SteelFire]

Not using cheat death is perfectly acceptable. First time I used it was just to see how the whole mechanic functioned and how brutal it was. The brutality of it, I feel, is the balancing factor for it. Just starting all over or cheating death is not a decision to be made lightly. The second time I used it was because I had recently finished Tales in the run and was working on the Trader quests. I didn't do my research and didn't understand how severe lacerations worked, and killed myself in my sleep.

I chose the short-term penalty and risky spawn, and managed to pull it off successfully, spawning at night in TWM. Bit of luck and a lot of map knowledge got me back to mountaineer's hut. Knowing how the game works is important.

To be fair to the game, you really just got a bad roll of the dice with the food poisoning and weather. I mean, sure, 80% seems good, but that still means a 20% chance to get hit. That's just the coin toss; it's fine 1000 times, but that one time; bam. Some places the weather is naturally worse, you were in one. As for cabin fever, it's not random, and is controllable by the player; and also has a visible risk meter on your condition screen before you actually get it. Here's where map knowledge is critical... there's a cave in Transfer Pass. You were getting cabin fever regardless of the other things. You'd have been in the same boat if you made it to the airfield. Your sleep location would have been the open hanger or vehicles and you'd have needed a fire.

[Alcoholocaust]

It is very true that Cabin Fever is manageable, especially once food and gear are not so much a concern. I always try to keep in the back of my mind how much time I'm spending indoors over the most recent few days. If I can mitigate the risk even just by running around and gathering wood for a few hours here and there, I'll do that. Otherwise, I'll try to stay within range of a warm cave and plan on sleeping at least one night there if I'm spending too much time in one location. Some challenges in the game you can plan ahead for like that.

[PowerOn]

Originally posted by LoKi³:

SUDDENLY.... 'CABIN FEVER' so cant sleep in doors.
Cant sleep in the cars outside because of the hypothermia.

Water under the bridge, but can sleep in the cars in Transfer Pass - I did this in Interloper.

I make a campfire between two cars, was not affected by wind, and of course, sleeping in 1 hours turns, just in case.

Anyway take the lesson, don't eat risking food when traveling, use cattails as "travel food".

That canyon for Airfield have warranted blizzards, so go prepared, with coal for make campfire for several hours, around 2/3 of the path are a cave in the left side and in the end of the canyon a trailer.

[Alexander]

pro tip, there is an accessibility setting that lets you hold down the left click in a struggle, not sure if its exactly the fastest possible way to get out of one but I've never died in a struggle with full health, in fact most of the times I get out with about 80% health.

Maybe some will think thats cheating but I think after my 100th struggle my guy should just know how to stab a wolf in the neck at that point, sometimes I just hunt wolves like that to save ammo.

[Kisama]

I'm about to start a 100% voyageur run and this all sounds hilarious. The wolves on Stalker don't do it for me, custom disables achievements and interloper sounds sketchy for 1000 days, in terms of dying to silly stuff on day 900 or something.

I wish there was a Stalker without endless wolves setting lol.

[PowerOn]

I have a easy Cheat Death experience,

In the end of afternoon I was fishing in CH fishing hut between the Misanthropes and Jackrabbbits Island (Interloper)

A beachcombing wood grid are in the tin ice near, so I have the "brilliant" idea of take all clothes, run and climb over the grid and harvest.

Being latter in day I already have low health, so I fall in the ice and die from hypothermia.

Choose spawn near, 50% temporary penalty.

Spawn in the ice near the floating logs, so just run for Jackrabbits and take some basic clothes from beachcombing I left there, without became freeze.

After I remember that I have dropped my cloths inside the Fishing Hut.

And notice that my backpack are in the small island between the Fishing Hut and Misanthropes.

Delete this save, recover from 50% health during 30 days will be boring.

[SteelFire]

Yeah, you got extremely lucky with your bag being that close, usually they're across the map. my recent one wasn't too far from where I died in Mountaineer's Hut, but... the cougar that had mauled me next to the hut... which I had killed after getting mauled... had respawned and my pack was in its territory. Made for a fun experience sneaking to my pack several days later. Killed it again before I left the region.

I embraced the temporary HP penalty and continued as normal, mostly; just being aware I was already at a disadvantage. Thought I was dead for sure when the misanthrope bear got me while I was harvesting a wolf on the ice. Dragged my almost dead butt back to Quonset, and pulled through.

[Bobywan]

Originally posted by SteelFire:

Yeah, you got extremely lucky with your bag being that close, usually they're across the map. my recent one wasn't too far from where I died in Mountaineer's Hut, but... the cougar that had mauled me next to the hut... which I had killed after getting mauled... had respawned and my pack was in its territory. Made for a fun experience sneaking to my pack several days later. Killed it again before I left the region.

I embraced the temporary HP penalty and continued as normal, mostly; just being aware I was already at a disadvantage. Thought I was dead for sure when the misanthrope bear got me while I was harvesting a wolf on the ice. Dragged my almost dead butt back to Quonset, and pulled through.

Killing the misanthrope bear is always on my mind whenever I come back to CH, I don't want it to sneak up on me during an aurora.