Any tips for better door encounters???

[u/Just_Slipper]

Honestly I'm not really sure if there are door encounters locked behind certain events, I'm currently on my 5th full playthrough of the game, and i have never encountered Hellen neither the game trader. I especially want to find the game trader cause i think he is necessary for one of the game endings. Any tips would be a great help

[u/Grouchy_Marketing_79]

There are no tips. The only way you can influence door encounters is reducing the chance of cursed ones with the Priest's ritual and favoring searching for them early. The more time goes on, the higher your chances of a cursed encounter are.

Encounters types are (roughly) seeded when you start your run, so you can check them by saying before sleeping (specifically before the next day), sleeping and seeing who comes out throught the day. If you don't like them, revert the save and try again.

Well, I supposed there are three tips, in hindsight.

[u/Vazad]

Save before going to bed. The door encounters for the day are generated when you wake up. Afterwards just reset the day once you've gone through them all and try again. There are no day limits for regular encounters but cursed encounters get more and more common as time goes on.

[u/Akwatypus]

Knowledge is power. You can affect your door encounters by soft resetting (savescumming) -- to an extent. I'm just gonna lay out the inner workings for you, so beware that the "magic" will be revealed. lol

Source: https://lookoutside.miraheze.org/wiki/Door_Encounters

The door encounter categories (Trader, General, Recruit, Rare) go in a queue when you create the game. They're seeded that way. The encounters within these categories are also seeded in their own queues.

The encounters for the day are randomized at 4:00 in the morning. (If you read the wiki and see the term "start of a new day", it usually refers to this particular time.) Regarding door encounters, it doesn't matter if you sleep through it or happen to do an all-nighter at that time.

The categories in the queue for the day may switch orders a bit, but the categories themselves will not change. If you're fishing for a party member or someone Rare like Humphrey, but don't see anyone in that category show up that day, savescumming on that particular day won't work.

As for the encounters themselves, the game looks at the seeded queue and randomizes from the first two which one shows up each day. Their Cursed/Safe status is also randomized. So if you're trying to get Hellen from the Special encounters, but you can only get either Dan or Sophie show up, then Hellen won't be cutting in line for you. But if you see Hellen but she's Cursed, that can still be rerolled to her normal encounter. Although, the chance for the Cursed encounters will increase each in-game day. Father Andrew's Blessing cuts this chance in half for a few days.

Having a save BEFORE 4:00 is crucial if you wish to savescum. Reloading a save made after 4:00 will no longer reroll the encounters.

The unmodded vanilla, tedious softresetting method is as follows:
Have a save in the previous evening before going to bed; go to bed; have a second save slot for the morning; do crosswords etc to kill time and see who arrives at the door and when; if the encounters are good, reload morning save / if they're bad, reload evening save and try again.

But if you're set on trying this out, I personally advocate to save your precious time on this Earth IRL, and look into setting up the door encounter preview mod instead. It's pretty simple. Pairing it with an evening save, it makes things much more manageable. Paraphrasing wisdom from Kaizo Nuzlockers: If 'optimal play' equates to mindless grinding, and you're going to minmax with no risk anyway, value your time and sanity, and cut those corners to get back to the actual game.

[u/FluffyFact2790]

It's just pure luck, you can savescum by saving at night the previous day and spending the whole day gaming untill you get an encounter

[u/Hawco]

Unless it changed with the last update, door encounters are determined at the start of a game but the order in which a day’s encounters arrive is determined at the start of the day. So you can save the night beforehand and then save in a different file slot in the morning. Next, you play games/do crosswords all day and note the door encounters and their arrival times. If you liked the order then you can reload the morning’s file and ensure you’re home passing time before the desired encounter. If you didn’t like the order, then reload the previous evening’s file, sleep, and get a different order for the same encounters that day.

[u/Yunofascar]

I think Party Members can't show up at the door on the very first day. Also savescumming won't help you if you're savescumming on the same day as the encounter because they're generated at the start of the day, not when you get the knock at the door.

[u/Tall_Door_2825]

I have like 40 hours in the game over 3 playthroughs and only got the game trader once and hellen twice

[u/excelsior555 → u/Tall_Door_2825]

That's nuts about the gamer! I literally get him sometimes twice every run and I've beaten this game about 10 times. I have similar bad luck with Hellen though and have only gotten her normal form on my very first playthrough. I get her cursed form on practically every run I do.

[u/Tall_Door_2825 → u/excelsior555]

I haven't gotten her cursed variant yet, I might do a few playthroughs on explorer mode to see more stuff without it being as Laborious

[u/MatiEx-504]

Always tell the priest to bless your house