Is Enless Mode Good? Fun?

[A Real Firecracker]

Or is it just an excuse to call something endless, which is nothing more than an open ended recycling of the previous experience?

[Fabiaville]

no it has a randomized frostland. every 17-20 days, there is a short "storm". after surviving that storm the forstland gets reset with new exploration options. you can also find lore now. the "relics".

[Prophet_01]

I like it so far. Fairly challenging on hard and the new storm effects are a nice touch. The new craters are pretty cool, too.

The easyer mode probably gets old fast. The game is build around survival, making hard choices and it isn't too fleshed out around the economy part.
If you can make it somewhat challenging for you, it should keep you busy for a while. It's kinda nice to build a city that'll last and not just try to beat a scripted scenario.

I'm not sure yet at what point my city is untouchable, but I hope that there are still some effects in there, that hit hard even very late into the game.

[Pzdos]

Frostpunk was all around random events that happened in scenarious every 1-3 days, that forced you to deal with them and problems they bring. Endless mod is just empty city-building map, that dont offer you anything. Scripted law events - no comments. 5 day penalty to something after storm - not even hardly a challange. Randomly generating map and relics - well, that's really cool, and interesting for like 2-3 hours, than you will just get tired of waiting and start scrolling days while reading a book, or chatting. And that's all. I really appreciate the free dlc, but it's just for 5-10 hours gameplay after which you'll get bored. To be honest, I lost interest in this mode after establishing my resource gain and research progress on 1st hour.
So, in conclusion, it's an interesting mode, but not something impressive.
Btw I was playing on hard difficulty and dont think on extreme or survivor mode will be something different.

[Nararya]

I think you're just too good at this game that nothing is a challenge anymore.

[-=Sentor=-]

Originally posted by 弁護士:

I lost interest in this mode after establishing my resource gain and research progress on 1st hour.

Pls go away troll, hush hush.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by 弁護士:

Frostpunk was all around random events that happened in scenarious every 1-3 days, that forced you to deal with them and problems they bring. Endless mod is just empty city-building map, that dont offer you anything. Scripted law events - no comments. 5 day penalty to something after storm - not even hardly a challange. Randomly generating map and relics - well, that's really cool, and interesting for like 2-3 hours, than you will just get tired of waiting and start scrolling days while reading a book, or chatting. And that's all. I really appreciate the free dlc, but it's just for 5-10 hours gameplay after which you'll get bored. To be honest, I lost interest in this mode after establishing my resource gain and research progress on 1st hour.
So, in conclusion, it's an interesting mode, but not something impressive.
Btw I was playing on hard difficulty and dont think on extreme or survivor mode will be something different.

The difference between hard and extreme is quite large in both the regular scenarios and endless mode. Based on what you say hard sounds like easy tbh.

You weren't also playing in Serenity on top of it right?

Originally posted by Nararya:

I think you're just too good at this game that nothing is a challenge anymore.

Probably not if they were only playing on hard. When you get to the point that a game is incredibly easy you'd always start off with the highest difficulty off the bat, as the rest just falls too short in challenge.

[The Maddog]

I'm a little dissapointed in it so far. I was playing it on easy on the largest map with the intent of growing my city as big as possible.


I hoped I'd be able to keep finding survivors as my city grew but you hit a population cap and thats that. Not really any more reason to grow your city other than to keep expanding resource storage.

If (and I get this depends on the game engine supporting it) it was possible to continue rescuing people then it would have a bit more appeal to me. As it is theres not much replay value beyond the original senarious beyond collect the relics.

If I was to offer any feedback it would be the following.

Drop the random spawned resource locations and big steam core finds and go back more to the supply route mode option of the base game. Better to have a few outposts to look after rather than the current set up.

Allow other cities to be found and supply routes or rescue missions using atomatrons to be established.

Remove the population cap.

Re-address the whole purpose system for endless senarios. It dosent work well.

Maybe add a few more public buildings such as schools (see next point).

Address the whole child shelter / labour thing. Works great early on in endless but it's pretty defunct once you get enough steamcores. If they're working it's pointless once you have loads of automatons, if they're helping engineers or medics, it's worthless once you have everything researched and / or Automotons running infirmaries.

etc etc etc

I get that the game was original made around a whole bunch of "timed" situations and the endless mode is just spun off from that but parts just dont work in endless.




And belive me when I say all the above comes from a place of love. I love Fronst Punk and I love city building games but parts of endless mode are just falling flat for me :/

[A Real Firecracker]

I went ahead and purchased the game. I think the developers are class acts, and they deserve to be supported. Just my feeling.

This was a game that I was looking forwards to more than any other this year. Nice to see the added content and modes that they promised. Even if they aren't all that I had hoped for, it's still worth the price.

Thanks for all of the feedback, folks.

[Alcator]

Originally posted by Conga-Line Bob:

Or is it just an excuse to call something endless, which is nothing more than an open ended recycling of the previous experience?

So, I chose the largest map, "Flats", set all difficulty sliders to minimum. I had fully automated city by day 35 (after 2 storms). Since the 3rd storm, the temperature "stabilizes", so you don't go below -90 during the storm - i.e., you don't even need to use overdrive on the max. upgrade generator, and everyone is nice and cozy in their fully upgraded houses.

By day 97, I filled the Archive with 15 relics, so that's basically "the end" (there's nothing new to do - all research, all resources, all policies which I wanted... they are all implemented).

However, I also tried the "default" Crater (the one you start in in A NEW HOME), and I filled it to the brim with houses and other structures just to be all set - but that one is lacking in storage capacity etc.

I haven't yet tried the other two maps, will do it now. And this time, I will add the "Random hazards".

[Prophet_01]

Canyon is interesting. It forces you to think much more about distances from the generator. People may freeze on their way to work and some deposits are also fairly expensive to get to with roads. I had some severe issues finding cores and people at first which forced me to optimize and reorganize things a lot up until the second storm. Quite interesting.

At the beginning it's a bit tricky to follow your regular building patterns, as the space around the generator is a bit limited and some deposits are just rly far off to the sides and pretty isolated.
The deposit locations also seem to be randomized (had very different locations on my 2 starts, which made things rather interesting).

All that doesn't necessarily matter too much in the end though. As soon as automization rly kicks in, challenges disappear.

[Ed]

Its honestly really fun but it's not without its flaws like most people have said above. Im on Hard and im currently sat on 99,999 coal and 70,000 food rations. Nobody gets sick because I have every workshop upgrade. Nobody gets cold because I have a maxxed out steam hub. Nobody has to work as I have 20 automatons that do everything. I have 510 people unemployed atm.

I also got 15/15 of the new relics (achievement seems to be bugged). Once you have established everything there really isnt much to do aside from speed up time and just wait for the storm which really isn't that bad.

I'd really like there to be a win factor. For example in games like Age of Empires you could build your Wonder and win that way. I'd like to have a maxxed out archive be the ending since at the moment it does seem endless, with very little to do.

[Kuikka]

I'm on the brink of buying but these comments make me pause. Endless mode is what I wanted game to have, but if it's over so soon (lack of challenges within hours) I wonder how devs can improve it. Devs are doing magnificent work by listening the players (and potential players too), but they should check titles like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld - "endless mode building in harsh environment" games that are anything but boring - and study what elements make them succeed. External threats and projects players can try to complete, combined with "losing is fun" attitude (worsening conditions -weather, environment, other people, breakdowns- could push players and their cities to their limit)

[Alcator]

Originally posted by Kuikka:

I'm on the brink of buying but these comments make me pause. Endless mode is what I wanted game to have, but if it's over so soon (lack of challenges within hours) I wonder how devs can improve it. Devs are doing magnificent work by listening the players (and potential players too), but they should check titles like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld - "endless mode building in harsh environment" games that are anything but boring - and study what elements make them succeed.

It's a 20 dollars game that gives you 20+ hours of fun guaranteed, and if you're like me, who loves to replay it over and over, perfecting your strategy, it's easily over a hundred.

Plus, the setting, the graphics, the music, the "story", they are all pretty awesome. You're getting a luxurious restaurant meal when you buy this. Don't compare it with McDonald's :-)

[Nuggs]

i hear its good but i wouldnt know since my game wont launch.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Kuikka:

I'm on the brink of buying but these comments make me pause. Endless mode is what I wanted game to have, but if it's over so soon (lack of challenges within hours) I wonder how devs can improve it. Devs are doing magnificent work by listening the players (and potential players too), but they should check titles like Dwarf Fortress and Rimworld - "endless mode building in harsh environment" games that are anything but boring - and study what elements make them succeed. External threats and projects players can try to complete, combined with "losing is fun" attitude (worsening conditions -weather, environment, other people, breakdowns- could push players and their cities to their limit)

Most games suffer from powercreep like this later on. XCOM gets incredibly boring once you got all the tech researched and your soldiers are basically supersoldiers. Civ gets boring once the map is fully explored and development becomes boring near the industrial/modern age.

I do agree with the projects bit tho. Having to complete missions or objectives in between the storms would make it more interesting.


That said, those that say there's a lack of challenge within hours are playing the game on the easy settings when they should really turn it up a few notches...

On extreme and in endurance mode the first few storms are quite brutal. It does still suffer from powercreep, but it will take much longer to reach the point where you are too strong to care.

Originally posted by Kuikka:

(worsening conditions -weather, environment)

Endless mode does give one random hazard in between each storm, and they can completely cripple you depending on which you get, and what your building strategies are. Imo they could added a little more, tho.