General tips infodump/Endless Mode guide

[Merco]

I've seen that the platinum rate for TFitF is pretty low, so thought that I might as well put down my massive list of tips for anyone that might be able to use them. This is based on doing an Endless Mode run after a normal campaign run.

 

Getting to 200 miles in Endless is harder than the campaign, as in addition to no checkpoints (sort of), you're also locked onto the harder difficulty, so your stats go down much faster compared to traveler difficulty.

 

• First off, you want to make the rudder and storage upgrades for the raft asap; the rudder actually lets you decide where to go, and storage is...more storage. From there, I'd prioritise sturdy frame, shelter (I died from exhaustion pretty early on in my first endless try), stove, then the purifier or the motor.
• I found that there were enough camps on endless to not need the stove urgently, plus you don't need it to make gas bombs or tea if you aren't getting bitten by snakes in the first place (I didn't find the gas bomb very useful either).
• For water, if you carry around 3-4 jars, you can either filter polluted river water (grab charcoal from campfires) or just collect rainwater by using the empty jars on the quick menu when it's raining. I recommend the latter, as clean water never goes off and there are some stretches of river where it constantly rains.

Now for some exploits...

• Dying in Endless Mode will finish that run for good (the game autosaves on death), but it also saves when you first land on a new island, or when you sleep (didn't test if it saves on sitting at a fire). That means that if you're being attacked/are sick and about to die, you can just quit to the menu, hit continue and you'll be back on the dock ready to try again. You can also save your game to USB (the cloud causes some issues, from what I've heard), then reload if you die without intending to.
• The three predators have easy to learn patterns, which also makes getting around a bit easier. Boars die after two snake bites or arrows, or one spear trap. They always do the same straight charge attack, but eventually go back to their starting position if you both move away from it. The exception is if you shoot a boar once or it gets bitten; after that they seem to constantly chase you all over the island until you leave or it dies. I wouldn't recommend fighting the Boar King if you find it, as it takes lots of resources to kill and chases you all over the map. You can dodge a boar's attack then loot a container, it just takes a little practice to get the timing right.
• Wolves die after three attacks. They can be briefly shooed away with the stick, but this only really works if there's one of them. If there is one and you don't want to fight it but do want to loot the island, you can shoo it away then immediately start searching a container - just make sure you grab whatever's inside then shoo it away again immediately afterwards. If there are three, each wolf has it's own cooldown timer, so it's pretty difficult to avoid being bitten. You can cheat and poison multiple wolves with one tainted meat, by throwing it then picking it up as the wolf gets to it. This doesn't always work, but is still worth trying as Devil's Trumpet is fairly rare. There are only ever a maximum of three normal wolves per island. If you luck out and get the Elder Wolf or White Wolf to spawn, try and kill them! Their pelts make the best jackets in the game, with the white being the better of the two (very warm, chance to avoid all animal attack damage). You can easily get the Elder Wolf (red one) by putting up a spear trap (just one works), as it's pretty aggressive. The White Wolf is much rarer and harder to kill; it seems more scared of Scout than the other wolves and I actually lost it a couple of times because it ran away. Best bet is to stack two spear traps on top of each other then slowly walk away, leading the wolf into the tripwires. Poison bait and arrows don't work on the special wolves, as they immediately flee. Wolves will focus on attacking bears if you lure wolves towards bear dens; this typically results in all the wolves being killed, but far enough away from the bear that they can be looted. If a snake bites a wolf, the wolf usually runs away, but eventually returns to continue attacking you. If a wolf and boar are fighting, neither of them actually seemed to win when I was playing, so they essentially remove themselves as dangers while you're on the island.
• Bears take four hits to put down; I used two spear traps and two arrows. Bears never leave the den unless you get too close/attack them or if other animals attack them. In my experience, with three wolves, one will run in and cause the bear to leave and kill all the wolves - leaving the den open for you to run in and grab the contents! Boars will charge bears, but usually get killed right in front of the bear, making it too risky to try and search them. If a bear is out and attacking wolves, give a wide berth or it might attack you as well. Usually dens contain boar hide or repair patches, but you'll need to keep checking bear dens if you want the platinum as they are the only place to get spoiled fish (needs eating for the 'Bad Things' trophy, and to get the blood flukes affliction). If you kill a bear, check the den and it doesn't have anything useful, just quit to the menu and continue again without attacking the bear, as den contents are always the same from when you first land on an island and killing a bear is fairly resource-intensive.
• Rabbits are obviously needed to make pouches. Few points - rabbits don't come out at night, and the box trap was more useful than the snare during my playthrough (two uses instead of one, but uses 4 saplings instead of 2). You can chuck a gas bomb to kill multiple rabbits, but this was a bit fiddly.
• Crows alert wolves to your presence, unless you shoo them away before they start cawing (marked by red lines from their beaks and a red line on the edge of the screen).
• Snakes will bite anything that comes near, then leave the map/island. Snakes are attracted to campfires and torches, but I rarely used torches (usually it's easy enough to lure a wolf/boar into the snake, rather than having to set the snake up as a trap).
• I used my first Endless run to prepare for the next ones - stockpile as much jerky as possible (I had around 30ish) for the vegetarian trophy, and make sure you put it and everything else you need in the dog's inventory before dying. When you're ready for a fresh run (after 200 long miles), die (ideally checking off a required death that you haven't got yet). Create a backup save at this point, then you can just reload that one after doing vegetarian (or any other Endless trophy).
• I'm not sure if it was a bug, but after finishing off endless mode, I died then started a new story campaign and the dog inventory carried over, which saved a massive amount of time.

[pkopetzky]

@Merco Thanks for the tips, I think they're helpful as a checklist. How did you do Paleo diet? The requirements seemed to have changed, so now you need to survive the first 40 days, which makes this a lot trickier than just carrying on an endless run until you get it.

[Merco]

4 minutes ago, pkopetzky said:

@Merco Thanks for the tips, I think they're helpful as a checklist. How did you do Paleo diet? The requirements seemed to have changed, so now you need to survive the first 40 days, which makes this a lot trickier than just carrying on an endless run until you get it.

From memory, I think I stockpiled jerky using the dog item carryover method, which can be used to keep you alive at the start until you are able to hunt animals for meat.

 

Starting with a stash of jerky is also super useful for the vegetarian trophy (I was more than a little amused to find that you can still obtain Vegetarian by spending the whole 20 days eating dried meats!)

[pkopetzky]

Ha, yes, got the vegetarian trophy the same way. ?

 

Thanks for the tips for paleo diet, did the same thing and will carry on building up until I can survive until day 40 on meat.

[HedleyNEUK]

Superb load of info, noted most of it for me starting this at the wekeend

 

Thanks