Are drifters spawning every night an outdated mechanic?

[Headshotkill]

This is my first post here so hi to everyone, I've watched several YT series about Vintage story last year and played a bit myself. I like the game very much, it really brings back that old minecraft mixture of excitement/fear nostalgia back when I played it in 2011 as a 13 year old. The progression from stone age to medieval basic industry is extremely rewarding.

However the game suffers from a bad design choice which hurts the overall gameplay in my opinion.
I've identified 3 broad categories ingame which provide different kinds of enjoyment:

Homesteading: Surviving in nature, gathering food, building a shelter, farming, industry, mining, base design, etc.
Except for the very early game this category is very relaxing to play, it's similar to stardew valley where you perform chores like farming, food cooking/preserving and metal crafting which improve your situation and prepare you for exploration/expeditions. This IMO is the game's strongest quality at the moment and the main reason I want to play it.

Creativity: Decorating your base with nice rooms, a garden, etc.
This is also a category which provides relaxing enjoyment. The great variety of blocks and ability to chissel also make this one of the game's strong points.

Exploration: Spelunking, discovering ruins and dungeons, fighting enemies, etc.
This is the exciting part of the game, the thrill of high risk and reward, you gather trophies as I'll call them and bring them back to your base for crafting advanced recipes or decoration.
At the moment IMO this is the game's weakest category, I read an improved combat system/caves is on the devs roadmap which is nice and I won't focus on suggestions like how to improve caves/ruins/mobs, that's not for this thread. 
 

The main flaw I see in this game is the use of the outdated 'enemies spawn at night' concept which dates back over a decade ago when Minecraft first introduced it to my knowledge.
At the time this was an exciting concept but it quickly becomes useless as you get a decent base and gear, the mobs which spawn can be simply ignored at best or become downright annoying at worst.
I think it's necessarry for good gameplay if the exploration category is seperated from the 2 other categories. When it's night and I'm safe inside my base metalsmithing or baking bread I don't want to listen to the constant moaning of drifters outside. There's no way they're getting inside so it serves no purpose and hurts the homesteading/creative part of the game. 

Am I proposing completely peacefull nights? No.
Player's should still be incentivised to hunker down for the night and set up camp, this can be archieved by nocturnal predators becoming more active and simply the darkness of night will make it difficult to navigate. However there's no reason why we need more than a burning campfire to keep predators at bay, if it's raining or cold you'll also probably need a lean-to shelter or a tent.
This opens up surface exploration early on without forcing the player to hide in a mudhole every night, I've always wanted to spend a night in a forest with a simple camp sleeping under the stars.

If a campfire is enough for safety, why build a secure base when settling down long term?
Because we still have temporal storms, I'd like to see temporal storms fleshed out with new mechanics beyond just being a 'horde night' type event but that's also a topic for another time.
Temporal storms should be the only time when supernatural enemies invade the surface, this and a possible 'corruption spreading over the world' type mechanic is also something that popped into my head.

With the exception of temporal storms this means a player will only encounter supernatural enemies if they willingly enter a dangerous zone, the danger would gradually increase as we descent deeper into caves. (or a corrupted surface biome) 
This establishes a solid game loop where we prepare our gear and supplies for an expedition inside our base --> explore dangerous territory/find valuable loot --> return to base and use loot to upgrade gear --> explore deeper more dangerous areas/find even better loot --> repeat

I understand this loop is already what the devs are probably aiming for, it's just having supernatural enemies spawn every night muddies everything, interferes with the relaxing part of the game and creates annoyance.

 

So yeah, that's what I currently think about the game. I wasn't sure if this is more of a suggestion or a discussion, I'm not really suggesting a new feature, rather rearranging things that are already in the game so I guess it's a discussion. Let me know what you think.

Image: Difficulty/reward gradient

Edited June 6, 2023 by Headshotkill

[PhotriusPyrelus]

I don't know if I'd call the "enemies spawn at night" mechanic "outdated", but I do tend to agree with your reasoning that Drifters shouldn't spawn in the overworld.  Hearing their perpetual moaning at my door does get pretty old.  To be fair, there *is* a way to stop their spawning, but lighting up a reasonable radius around your base can take a long time to do with permanent light.

I hope they can figure out a way to make combat interesting and engaging, and something I want to do and enjoy, but outside one specific game (and even that one ruined it in later patches), I don't think I've ever enjoyed combat in a MineCraft style game.  It's almost always something I either avoid entirely, or use strictly as self-defense.  To that end, I just turn off temporal storms.  Wish I could turn off the stupid portals; I had one spawn right on top of me in the morning as I was getting out of bed one day!

I've contemplated just turning it on peaceful mode, but that just feels really...lame.  As frustrating as getting killed is, I don't want to be perfectly, totally safe, either.

[l33tmaan]

I would like it if none of the NPCs in this game just spawned out of nowhere. I remember posting about this years ago, but I'll bring it up again: Creatures should spawn in 'nests' (or animal dens or whatever) that are physical blocks that generate in logical areas for that specific creature - you can track variables in this block such as creature capacity, food storage, territory size, aggression level, and basically anything that can influence the creature's behavior. Ideally, this would be on top of the creature's normal AI package. 

For animals, as time goes on and they exhaust the available resources in an area (grass and berries for herbivores, prey animals for carnivores, everything for omnivores [AKA: bears]), the nest checks for nearby areas that would be suitable to respawn in, sends the creatures in that direction, then deactivates itself and respawns somewhere else, starting the cycle again. If the nest reaches capacity for an extended period of time, maybe that could cause new nests to spawn nearby as the creatures move away to deal with less resource competition. 

Most importantly, this gives the player something to track and react to. Too many wolves in the area? Just fight through them and destroy their nest.

How would this work for drifters? I dunno, make rifts spawn less frequently but last longer and tie them to an area's temporal stability. That way they spawn underground, but also in unstable areas above ground, which would be logical. 

[LJim]

4 hours ago, l33tmaan said:

I would like it if none of the NPCs in this game just spawned out of nowhere. I remember posting about this years ago, but I'll bring it up again: Creatures should spawn in 'nests' (or animal dens or whatever) that are physical blocks that generate in logical areas for that specific creature - you can track variables in this block such as creature capacity, food storage, territory size, aggression level, and basically anything that can influence the creature's behavior. Ideally, this would be on top of the creature's normal AI package. 

For animals, as time goes on and they exhaust the available resources in an area (grass and berries for herbivores, prey animals for carnivores, everything for omnivores [AKA: bears]), the nest checks for nearby areas that would be suitable to respawn in, sends the creatures in that direction, then deactivates itself and respawns somewhere else, starting the cycle again. If the nest reaches capacity for an extended period of time, maybe that could cause new nests to spawn nearby as the creatures move away to deal with less resource competition. 

Most importantly, this gives the player something to track and react to. Too many wolves in the area? Just fight through them and destroy their nest.

How would this work for drifters? I dunno, make rifts spawn less frequently but last longer and tie them to an area's temporal stability. That way they spawn underground, but also in unstable areas above ground, which would be logical. 

This 101%!

In the 2022 trailer (which was what sold me on the game), observing wildlife was marketed as one of the features of VS. While the AI is not bad for the most part, I would say it still leaves a lot to be desired, especially in how they interact with one another. I was disappointed that drifters could actually spawn 2m away from you in thin air, or wolves could rubberband back to their spawn (assuming my eyes didn't deceive me). I am hopeful the AI will continue to improve instead of remaining at status quo, since it can open new doors to gameplay opportunities.

[PhotriusPyrelus]

3 hours ago, l33tmaan said:

I would like it if none of the NPCs in this game just spawned out of nowhere. I remember posting about this years ago, but I'll bring it up again: Creatures should spawn in 'nests' (or animal dens or whatever) that are physical blocks that generate in logical areas for that specific creature - you can track variables in this block such as creature capacity, food storage, territory size, aggression level, and basically anything that can influence the creature's behavior. Ideally, this would be on top of the creature's normal AI package. 

For animals, as time goes on and they exhaust the available resources in an area (grass and berries for herbivores, prey animals for carnivores, everything for omnivores [AKA: bears]), the nest checks for nearby areas that would be suitable to respawn in, sends the creatures in that direction, then deactivates itself and respawns somewhere else, starting the cycle again. If the nest reaches capacity for an extended period of time, maybe that could cause new nests to spawn nearby as the creatures move away to deal with less resource competition. 

Most importantly, this gives the player something to track and react to. Too many wolves in the area? Just fight through them and destroy their nest.

How would this work for drifters? I dunno, make rifts spawn less frequently but last longer and tie them to an area's temporal stability. That way they spawn underground, but also in unstable areas above ground, which would be logical. 

I've had similar thoughts when I run across a shallow cave, like "why do bears and wolves spawn willy-nilly all over the land instead of in these caves?  They'd be so much easier to avoid*!"

I'd guess the problem from a game design perspective is that removing animals respawning creates two problems: first, it makes it a *lot* easier to make an area safe.  Oh, you killed every bear and wolf within 1000 blocks and never venture outside of that area so new dens can't spawn or move in?  Guess you're safe forever!

Also - unless it only applied to hostiles - you could run out of potential livestock in your immediate area.  Imagine a new player struggling for food, wipes out all game animals in his starting area.  How many "Where are all the animals?!" threads would there be?  Also-also, it would make crops much more safe; if rabbits can't just spawn in the middle of the night, why would you need fences?

* - though admittedly they seem to have made wolves and bears MUCH easier to escape than they were in 1.15.5, but they still tend to be able to surprise you and cleave off half your HP bar almost before you know they're there.  I'd rather have ways to identify when they're around and maneuver around them.  In some biomes that's trivial.  In many it's not.

[Luzurper]

4 hours ago, l33tmaan said:

I would like it if none of the NPCs in this game just spawned out of nowhere. I remember posting about this years ago, but I'll bring it up again: Creatures should spawn in 'nests' (or animal dens or whatever) that are physical blocks that generate in logical areas for that specific creature - you can track variables in this block such as creature capacity, food storage, territory size, aggression level, and basically anything that can influence the creature's behavior. Ideally, this would be on top of the creature's normal AI package. 

For animals, as time goes on and they exhaust the available resources in an area (grass and berries for herbivores, prey animals for carnivores, everything for omnivores [AKA: bears]), the nest checks for nearby areas that would be suitable to respawn in, sends the creatures in that direction, then deactivates itself and respawns somewhere else, starting the cycle again. If the nest reaches capacity for an extended period of time, maybe that could cause new nests to spawn nearby as the creatures move away to deal with less resource competition. 

Most importantly, this gives the player something to track and react to. Too many wolves in the area? Just fight through them and destroy their nest.

How would this work for drifters? I dunno, make rifts spawn less frequently but last longer and tie them to an area's temporal stability. That way they spawn underground, but also in unstable areas above ground, which would be logical. 

I 100% agree with this.

It would be cool if there was also some system on top of this that just blatantly killing everything can also be consequential to an area's population for an animal, or just flat out wiping them out from the area, it would force you to be smart on how much you hunt stuff. Would also make for a cool Nomad gameplay-type loop of following the animals wherever they go if one wanted. Would definitely make getting food more interesting, up until you domesticate some animals.

[Headshotkill]

6 hours ago, l33tmaan said:

I would like it if none of the NPCs in this game just spawned out of nowhere. I remember posting about this years ago, but I'll bring it up again: Creatures should spawn in 'nests' (or animal dens or whatever) that are physical blocks that generate in logical areas for that specific creature - you can track variables in this block such as creature capacity, food storage, territory size, aggression level, and basically anything that can influence the creature's behavior. Ideally, this would be on top of the creature's normal AI package. 

For animals, as time goes on and they exhaust the available resources in an area (grass and berries for herbivores, prey animals for carnivores, everything for omnivores [AKA: bears]), the nest checks for nearby areas that would be suitable to respawn in, sends the creatures in that direction, then deactivates itself and respawns somewhere else, starting the cycle again. If the nest reaches capacity for an extended period of time, maybe that could cause new nests to spawn nearby as the creatures move away to deal with less resource competition. 

Most importantly, this gives the player something to track and react to. Too many wolves in the area? Just fight through them and destroy their nest.

How would this work for drifters? I dunno, make rifts spawn less frequently but last longer and tie them to an area's temporal stability. That way they spawn underground, but also in unstable areas above ground, which would be logical. 

Elegant idea, this 'nest block' could also determine the agression level of carnivores, if they have enough food in storage they'd be more passive.
This could also serve as a way to make the shallow caves near the surface an early game challenge to explore without the need to spawn drifters, the risk would be fighting carnivors while the reward is food/bones/animal hides/fat, enough to help the player make leather armor needed for deeper exploration. Keep the supernatural stuff reserved for temporal storms and deep underground so it remains something special. Because drifters are so common every night even early game they have to also be relatively easy(and thus boring) to deal with. If you seperate the supernatural stuff for late game you can remove the weak drifters and really emphasize the horror and danger of these things with unique abilities and effects. 

1 hour ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

I've had similar thoughts when I run across a shallow cave, like "why do bears and wolves spawn willy-nilly all over the land instead of in these caves?  They'd be so much easier to avoid*!"

I'd guess the problem from a game design perspective is that removing animals respawning creates two problems: first, it makes it a *lot* easier to make an area safe.  Oh, you killed every bear and wolf within 1000 blocks and never venture outside of that area so new dens can't spawn or move in?  Guess you're safe forever!

Also - unless it only applied to hostiles - you could run out of potential livestock in your immediate area.  Imagine a new player struggling for food, wipes out all game animals in his starting area.  How many "Where are all the animals?!" threads would there be?  Also-also, it would make crops much more safe; if rabbits can't just spawn in the middle of the night, why would you need fences?

* - though admittedly they seem to have made wolves and bears MUCH easier to escape than they were in 1.15.5, but they still tend to be able to surprise you and cleave off half your HP bar almost before you know they're there.  I'd rather have ways to identify when they're around and maneuver around them.  In some biomes that's trivial.  In many it's not.

Things you mention are actually good things, depletion of animals in a biome should be unlikely to archieve early on but possible with consequences.
If you kill all wolves in a biome, herbivores population will increase and natural resources are exhausted until they migrate away unless you start hunting them on mass.
You could always randomly spawn a carnivore nest in a herbivore rich area after some time to restore the ecosystem, perhaps run a check every spring.

If all herbivores are wiped out then carnivores become more and more desperate in an area and begin to agressively stalk the player, this could be a time when a more secure base is needed to protect yourself at night. Eventually the wolves leave and the area becomes quiet. I don't know if IRL this results in a boom of plants because nobody eats them or not but it's probably more of a bad thing than a good thing for survival if all animals are gone. 
Again you can run a check every spring season and randomly spawn a herbivore nest in the area if it has food and low predator population.

I wouldn't use this system for smaller animals like rabbits and vermin, they should still spawn out of thin air to disrupt your food supply at home.

This also incentivises the player to set up animal husbandry mid game to establish a secure and stable source of animal products without the risk of depleting the surrounding area.

Edited June 6, 2023 by Headshotkill

[Jackal Black]

I think they are points of view, I currently do not find the current system so bad.
Indeed I love it because it forces me to always keep a watchful eye in everything I do, both day and night.
The mechanics of spawning drifters during the night does not seem so obsolete to me, on the contrary it also seems very logical to me, it is from the most ancient times that mankind has associated the night as the most dangerous moment for itself, this arises from the fact that during dark hours many predators become much more active than others, not to mention that at the level of beliefs if the hours of light are associated with more benevolent entities at the same time the dark hours are associated with more evil spirits and entities. Therefore, it seems to me that the drifter's greatest spawn moment is during the night, and thanks to the fractures, these are also generated during daylight hours which is a good thing, forcing the player to pay attention to what he does and how moves prevents the person playing from getting bored. For example, I dropped Minecraft in favor of vintage, precisely because I consider it boring, too simple for my tastes and without any level of challenge or any form of gratification with the exception of the Nether, which however history teaches, people use it more as a teleport to shorten distances, exploiting bugs like piercing the ceiling or digging long corridors so you don't have to take any risks while moving from point A to point B.
Let's face it, the player is generally lazy, so if he finds a shortcut he usually exploits it.
Segregate Drifters only to deep caves? And then? Who goes fishing for them there? For what reason should one do this? For the loot? Yes, but if it's not stuff that I really need, then in any case I leave them there (see the glider) and I live well without dealing with them my chilled life on the surface, so much the minerals I get with the extraction because of the holes I make on the chunk, Therefore.
Furthermore, the question of their spawn also depends on the temporal activity, where if it is generally calm outside the fractures, these never spawn in those mountains, I have hours and hours of filming where I spend the night nice chill building precisely because the activity it's calm, while if that factor goes up then their spawn starts to be more massive.
I can understand that many people get annoyed and I understand it, but I'm one of those who would like monsters to spawn not at night, but also do it ignoring the issue of lighting, but I know that by doing so, at what point does it become impossible to enter a cave or dig a mining vein. So the current system suits me.
Then okay there are wolves and bears, which as much as I hate and also find annoying, segregating them only inside small caves would make their existence useless, easy to manage and even life inside the game boring.
Here I would say just reduce the spawn of the bears for a moment, because in some worlds that I generated just for testing there are really too many of them and in the early game they are practically impossible to manage, especially if you are a newcomer. I remember that in a test I had generated a seed with 5 brown bears in a single chunk.... that's a real nightmare
However, I remain of the opinion that at present the difficulty given by drifters, bears, storms etc. is fine, at most I would work more on their AI, which shows really good shortcomings, but in any case I also understand your point of view.

We'll see what this game holds for us in the future.

[1Joachim1]

i'm in the same boat as Jackal Black, there are reasons for everything and i don't find the night-spawn mechanic bad/outdated, on the contrary, it's quite lore friendly. you know (or should know) who are the drifters, and now, better than ever, everyone can get an idea of what they are, it's not a spoiler if you talk to one trader they will happily explain that god himself cursed the land and specifically cursed them to roam for the ETERNITY IN THE DARKNESS. the fact that they pop out of nowere.. i can understand it bothers you, it's a threat... but at the same rate, ferns bother me, like they infuriate me.. because they are, 99% of the time, the only reason i die. 

i however, approve the DEN block. it could be an interesting way to do things but as Jackal Black said i'm gonna of course try to cheese it as much as possible, not because i don't like it, but because it will most likely make my life easier, which is the whole point of a survival game, survive.

the temporal rifts are also tied to lore, the problem is that the whole land is cursed and that makes it so nowhere is safe, not even close to your home, you're living in a nightmare.. and that once it reaches a certain point, brings up the temporal storms. you're surviving in a supernatural world, making the supernatural be underground only it's not reasonable for me. you don't want rifts close by? build the contraption to keep them closed. you don't mind them? don't build it.

the fact that "early game" homesteading is not relaxing and becomes easier and easier is just a proof that you're doing things properly. increasing the upheaval just a tiny fraction will tear that "relaxing" part quite dramatically. it will create more "extreme" worlds with more mountains, more dangers that you won't be able to find as easy.. but the fact that they are outside.. you still forget that you're living in a nightmare. it hurts the homesteady? it does not. it's a reminder that you're not playing the other block game. you don't want to hear them? sleep through the night. it's a nice price to pay, don't you think? you're just asking for the game to be easier.

for the exploring part.. spelunking for you brings excitement, for me it's just tediousness... need to illuminate everything, fight monsters that are constantly spawning and delete the cages in order to be able to mine for 15 seconds just to find "poor" mineral is exciting the first time, not the second, at least for me.

i don't really know if we are playing the same game, but having a base, like a 4-5 block tall box where you can fit everything (cooking utils, forge utils, storage area, sleeping area, garden, and stables) it's allways required. campfires give no protection at all, you have no option except for building a base, specially 'cause you can be stoned to death from far away, the drifters are a tiny bit smarter since few version ago. a stray wolf and bear can maul you to death, specially bears can tear through armor like paper. if you want safety then live far away from forest, but then you won't have easy acess to wood. yourself are saying it "being inside my base it's safe" yes, so get your ass outside and just live around a campfire!

living in colder climates (like i do) reduces your food options, but increases the lifespan of the food it also kills you quicker tho, hypothermia is quite real on this game on the other hand, you can grow food in warmer climates, but makes it spoil faster. there's no penalty on having too much heat tho... the whole game is a balance and it's your job to find the sweet spot for you.

Edited June 6, 2023 by 1Joachim1
forgot about hypothermia and the new device to stop the rifts from appearing.

[Headshotkill]

22 minutes ago, 1Joachim1 said:

*snip*

i don't really know if we are playing the same game

*snip*

Well yeah, what I'm describing in the OP is not the game we have right now, it's what I think would make the game work better with less annoyance and more fun throughout.
This is all my opinion, lore wise it would still work given we have regular temporal storms but I agree with you that spelunking isn't as exciting as it should be right now but I'm sure the devs will work on improving this in the future anyway so I expect it to become more interesting.

I wouldn't say the game would suddenly be easier, drifters can't get you inside your base anyway so there's no difficulty difference between having them moaning outside your door or not. And ideally there would be natural nocturnal predators lurking around, combined with the darkness you'd not want to be roaming outside at night. I see no reason why we need the additionall supernatural drifters on top of that, it kinda makes the whole supernatural part of the game feel less unique/special when it's all over the place. The game would be more 'compartimentalized', where each of the different categories of fun (relaxation and excitement) are better seperated from each other so they both can be enjoyed to the maximum.

Edited June 6, 2023 by Headshotkill

[1Joachim1]

1 minute ago, Headshotkill said:

 it's what I think would make the game work better with less annoyance and more fun throughout

hm... i guess everyone feels the fun in different ways. for me the actual challenge and planning is enough to be real fun, noisy nights are the reminder of what's going on outside... otherwise it becomes more and more the other famous block game that i allways had to heavily mod in order to enjoy

there are plenty of things i agree that could make things less "tedious", for example if you read the forum one post about "fruit tree frustration" i mention that trees are not fun for me..

[Echoweaver]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but drifters don't spawn every night. They spawn on nights where the temporal instability is Medium or higher. I like this mechanic. I can stay out some nights without much concern, while others I need to get back to my base or build one quickly.

I appreciate the sense of safety that comes from my base, but for that safety to matter, there has to be danger out there to protect myself from.

Also, it's worth pointing out that until you get to very nasty drifters that I've only seen from high-level temporal storms, wolves and bears are more dangerous. In some ways, I find that to be an odd choice. OTOH, it does me that on the surface, the biggest dangers are unrelated to whether it is dark outside or not.

[Jackal Black]

Look, the way I see it, VS is a game that already works very well, sure, there are many things that could be done, added and modified, but describing it as a boring and not very fun game really seems to me that we are talking about different games.

Vintage Story in its game mechanics is complex, it always forces you to do things in order to be able to do others, it forces you to fight and farm resources, it also forces you to keep up with the crops and your farms, for this reason many of us love it, not only for the incredible flexibility the game has in building.
The creators themselves wanted to create a difficult game that doesn't give anything away, as demonstrated by that mocking "regequit" button that appears when you die.

Minecraft as beautiful as it is, it's really so simple and accessible that it really bores you, you don't have to stay behind the plantations at all, you plant them and when you want and if you remember it you can pull them up and eat them, or at best, there make an automatic farm with slave exploitation of a poor villager.
The monsters are only nocturnal, but they have the same agility as a sloth so you ignore them as if they didn't even exist.
And once you've made a cottage, killed the dragon and whither, you have nothing to do but build... build ... build.... which by the way is really easy to make resources in minecraft, in a cave you find all the minerals you need, farming wood is a piece of cake... and exploring the world, huge as it is, leads nowhere, as it is always the same biomes shot in patches and infinitely, which becomes really monotonous if it weren't for the glimpses that the landscapes give (which, among other things, you can hardly enjoy on java because many keep the chunks to a minimum except those who play on badrock who instead have the chunks to the maximum). They call it survival, but I only see a game that puts you in a creative where you just have to farm resources.
But it's not Minecraft's fault either, in the end if the game is like this it's because the community is always there to ask for things to be simple, funny and accessible, and in the end minecraft has become so simple and boring over time. I remind you when they had to Add the Warden, that 3/4 of the community complained all the time because it was too OP and therefore nerfed the poretto that wasn't even released yet.

Really guys, I understand that VS can be tedious in certain things, but we are not there to complain that there are no innovative games in the world and then as soon as someone comes out who dares or proposes something different we are there to "propose solutions to make it work better and make it more fun" by bringing it back on tracks similar to other existing titles.

Here I can say that I enjoy entering the caves to farm gears and so on, but right now I find them almost useless and they should be reviewed, but certainly not to make them the carpet where to hide the dangers there and remove them from the outside world.

 

[brndd]

34 minutes ago, Echoweaver said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but drifters don't spawn every night. They spawn on nights where the temporal instability is Medium or higher. I like this mechanic. I can stay out some nights without much concern, while others I need to get back to my base or build one quickly.

I appreciate the sense of safety that comes from my base, but for that safety to matter, there has to be danger out there to protect myself from.

Also, it's worth pointing out that until you get to very nasty drifters that I've only seen from high-level temporal storms, wolves and bears are more dangerous. In some ways, I find that to be an odd choice. OTOH, it does me that on the surface, the biggest dangers are unrelated to whether it is dark outside or not.

Yeah they don't spawn on Calm nights, which are fairly common. AFAIK they also only spawn near temporal rifts rather than randomly everywhere, though I could be wrong on that front, and even if I'm not the distinction would be somewhat meaningless given that temporal rifts spawn randomly around the player.

[Headshotkill]

4 hours ago, Jackal Black said:

Look, the way I see it, VS is a game that already works very well, sure, there are many things that could be done, added and modified, but describing it as a boring and not very fun game really seems to me that we are talking about different games.

 

I don't think VS is boring, really not, it's miles ahead of minecraft. I proposed this idea out of the viewpoint that drifters spawning at night in the overworld doesn't actually influence the difficulty of the game. This mechanic was directly ported over from minecraft so my suggestion to change it actually moves the game away from being like minecraft and more towards it's own identity. Once you have a base, drifters just roam out there and function as a deterrent against leaving after dark which to me devalues the supernatural part of the game to something weak and annoying cause they can't reach you anyway, you can fulfill this same role with more dangerous natural wild life as well. 

When you're under attack from supernatural enemies it should feel like a step above your average wolf roaming outside your base.

I guess an important missing piece of the puzzle I'm trying to explain is the game 'Darkwood', it's a full on horror game where you hide inside your base every night and experience different scary events which you need to survive.
My point is this, if drifters can't get to you and only moan outside your wall, they're not dangerous, in this case it's just something that annoys me personally, others may ignore it or say it adds to the atmosphere.
Why not have regular nights be peacefull so you can enjoy the calm/relaxing vibe of the game, maybe even watch the stars sitting next to your campfire. Then on random nights(temporal storms) truly go all out with the supernatural stuff and ramp up the tension: looking out the window you see dark figures standing in the distance, an eerie ambience of moaning and crying descends over the entire region, a thick black fog oozes through the cracks in your doors and windows, you start to hear banging/scratching on the walls, suddenly the door opens and all the torches in your base begin to snuff out, you panick and retreat to your cellar and barricade the door waiting for morning.

Perhaps I went a bit overboard with the scary story and not every supernatural night has to be this intense but I hope you get my point that drifters currently add little danger and atmosphere to the game so I think they're just annoying.

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by Headshotkill

[Jackal Black]

7 minutes ago, brndd said:

Sì, non si generano nelle notti calme, che sono abbastanza comuni. AFAIK, inoltre, si generano solo vicino a spaccature temporali piuttosto che casualmente ovunque, anche se potrei sbagliarmi su quel fronte, e anche se non lo fossi, la distinzione sarebbe in qualche modo priva di significato dato che le spaccature temporali si generano casualmente attorno al giocatore.

Only when there is calm stability do they spawn near rifts, while at night with medium/high/apocalyptic stability they spawn wherever they please as long as they are on a natural block.
So if you're at home at night, with a fracture nearby and high instability, you forget about going out, as it should be
At least that you don't have a good armor... so you go out there and have a little fun fighting like I do

[Jackal Black]

13 minutes ago, Headshotkill said:

Non penso che VS sia noioso, davvero no, è molto più avanti di Minecraft. Ho proposto questa idea partendo dal punto di vista che i vagabondi che si generano di notte nell'overworld non influenzano effettivamente la difficoltà del gioco. Questa meccanica è stata trasferita direttamente da Minecraft, quindi il mio suggerimento di cambiarla sposta effettivamente il gioco dall'essere come Minecraft e più verso la propria identità. Una volta che hai una base, i vagabondi vagano là fuori e fungono da deterrente contro la partenza dopo il tramonto, il che per me svaluta la parte soprannaturale del gioco a qualcosa di debole e fastidioso perché non possono raggiungerti comunque, puoi svolgere lo stesso ruolo con la vita selvaggia naturale più pericolosa pure. 

Quando sei sotto attacco da nemici soprannaturali dovrebbe sembrare un gradino sopra il tuo lupo medio che vaga fuori dalla tua base.

Immagino che un importante pezzo mancante del puzzle che sto cercando di spiegare sia il gioco "Darkwood", è un gioco horror completo in cui ti nascondi all'interno della tua base ogni notte e vivi diversi eventi spaventosi di cui hai bisogno per sopravvivere.
Il mio punto è questo, se i vagabondi non possono raggiungerti e gemono solo fuori dal tuo muro, non sono pericolosi, in questo caso è solo qualcosa che mi infastidisce personalmente, altri potrebbero ignorarlo o dire che si aggiunge all'atmosfera.
Perché le notti regolari non sono tranquille in modo da poter godere dell'atmosfera calma/rilassante del gioco, magari anche guardare le stelle sedute accanto al fuoco. Quindi, in notti casuali (tempeste temporali), fai davvero di tutto con le cose soprannaturali e aumenta la tensione: guardando fuori dalla finestra vedi figure oscure in piedi in lontananza, un'atmosfera inquietante di gemiti e pianti che scende sull'intera regione, una fitta nebbia nera filtra attraverso le fessure delle tue porte e finestre, inizi a sentire colpi/graffi sui muri, improvvisamente la porta si apre e tutte le torce nella tua base iniziano a spegnersi, sei preso dal panico e ti ritiri nella tua cantina e barrichi la porta aspettando il mattino.

Forse ho esagerato un po' con la piccola storia spaventosa e non tutte le notti soprannaturali devono essere così intense, ma spero che tu abbia capito che i vagabondi attualmente aggiungono poco pericolo e atmosfera al gioco, quindi penso che siano solo fastidiosi.

 

Yes, but you're comparing a 1 shot survival with a lasting survival where you start and you can easily never finish.
I put the Like only because you mentioned Darkwood another title that I loved very much, however they are completely different games, in darkwood there is no respawn of enemies, so if you clean an area after you can roam it freely indefinitely.
Resources are counted, you don't build bases but you have makeshift lodgings, and the mechanics of nights are fine for a title that has a beginning, a story and an end. There the nights give not only fear but real traumas. What are we talking about?
If you put such a mechanic on VS, rather than increasing the difficulty, you only increase the level of trauma of the players who would not be able to handle a fast pace like that in a game as long-lived as VS.

Instead I find it right that monsters don't spawn inside the house (even if I would prefer the opposite) otherwise the reason for building a safe zone is removed, without removing the fact that at the beginning if you are without armor and a Bicefalo spawns in a storm inside the house and you are ure bound there, he literally slaps you.
At most I would add some variant of Drifter that spawns at night, because it's true that you don't experience the surreal part of the game if you barricade yourself at home. But it's also right that one shouldn't be able to go around at night as if nothing were given the context of the game, just as it's also right that those people don't enter your house, depriving you of the possibility of hiding.
In darkwwod if you think about it, it's not up to the player to protect himself well, or rather he can do it and often helps, but if the game wants to kill you that night it has so many triggers and systems to do it that if you think about it, they are not avoidable at all.

[Thorfinn]

The Rust World breaking through is supposed to be the point, and drifters avoid the light (no big secret there) so darkness spawning drifters makes sense, particularly with the kind of darkness that is VS. It's darker than a moonless night. In the real world, if you are out in the middle of nowhere, if you have a cloudless, moonless night, you can see the shadow cast from the light of the Milky Way. VS is darker than that.

I've never investigated the spawning mechanics themselves -- having that knowledge seems cheaty to me, at least until I want to change the game experience, which kind of has to wait until the game is in it's more or less final state. Instead of static (or even semi-static) spawn blocks, including the cavern mechanism described above, my preference would be for the game to pick some arbitrary air block outside some range of any PC. If there is currently game within an arbitrary range of that block, then the spawn is likely predator. If there are berries in range, likely a trash panda. If a certain density of tall grass, and no livestock, likely them. Etc.Obviously, your homestead as we currently build them would favor spawning bunnies, coons and predators who are seeking your crops, berries and livestock, respectively. If you want the area around your homestead to be predator-free, easy enough. Grow no crops or berries, keep no stock, and remove all the grass or keep it closely cropped. If you so much as let the grass regrow, you will spawn rabbits who will draw predators. But that's why there is very little wildlife in cities. Keep your garden and livestock out at your country estate.   

[Maelstrom]

9 hours ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

I've had similar thoughts when I run across a shallow cave, like "why do bears and wolves spawn willy-nilly all over the land instead of in these caves?  They'd be so much easier to avoid*!"

I'd guess the problem from a game design perspective is that removing animals respawning creates two problems: first, it makes it a *lot* easier to make an area safe.  Oh, you killed every bear and wolf within 1000 blocks and never venture outside of that area so new dens can't spawn or move in?  Guess you're safe forever!

Also - unless it only applied to hostiles - you could run out of potential livestock in your immediate area.  Imagine a new player struggling for food, wipes out all game animals in his starting area.  How many "Where are all the animals?!" threads would there be?  Also-also, it would make crops much more safe; if rabbits can't just spawn in the middle of the night, why would you need fences?

* - though admittedly they seem to have made wolves and bears MUCH easier to escape than they were in 1.15.5, but they still tend to be able to surprise you and cleave off half your HP bar almost before you know they're there.  I'd rather have ways to identify when they're around and maneuver around them.  In some biomes that's trivial.  In many it's not.

To counter this I propose (in addition to @l33tmaan suggestion) that NPCs use bot pathfinding like Baritone to repopulate areas that have a low population to food ratio.

[Echoweaver]

Haha. You made me look up Darkwood. It looks awesome.

[Maelstrom]

2 hours ago, brndd said:

AFAIK they also only spawn near temporal rifts rather than randomly everywhere

Correct.  I've had drifters spawn inside my home just 2-3 blocks from me because 1. a rift was on the other side of the wall and 2. I didn't want to torch/stone spam the inside of my home.

[l33tmaan]

Heh, maybe if you go around wiping out all life from around you by constantly destroying respawning dens, your area reacts to the loss of life by making the area more temporally unstable. Is this a good idea? Probably not, but there should definitely be some consequences for devouring all of the resources in an area without sustaining the ecosystem.

2 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

To counter this I propose (in addition to @l33tmaan suggestion) that NPCs use bot pathfinding like Baritone to repopulate areas that have a low population to food ratio.

What do you mean 'like Baritone'?

Edited June 6, 2023 by l33tmaan

[Headshotkill]

I've decided to rename the title to something more relevant to the topic of this thread, should've done this sooner but forgot about it.

Edited June 6, 2023 by Headshotkill

[Jackal Black]

17 hours ago, Echoweaver said:

Ahah. Mi hai fatto cercare Darkwood. Sembra fantastico.

Remove the "seems".... it's damn beautiful in its being Horror

[Headshotkill]

So I've read a lot of replies which refer to the lore of the game and use that as a way to decide drifters spawning at night is inevitable, but to my knowledge a lot of the lore is flexible and should never overrule good gameplay.
You can easily make use of corrupted biomes with a large rift in the center which potentially spreads outwards over time to get the same effect, this way you have true stable calm areas and temporal instable areas. This way everyone gets to choose where they want to settle and what they want to experience. Like the sound of drifters moaning every night? Set up camp in a corrupted biome, or perhaps you're forced by circumstances to set up camp in a corrupted biome. This can be combined with better loot spawns/ruins to make the increased danger worth the price. If a biome is extremely corrupted you can spawn drifters and other supernatural stuff at day time as well.

Even if you settle in a calm area and enjoy the quiet nights you still have to watch out for nocturnal predators lurking in the dark. This and you still get temporal storms anywhere on the map so at regular times you'd experience the crazy supernatural stuff anyway. There's just no need for the constant drifter presence every night.

 

Edited June 7, 2023 by Headshotkill