Please add an option to wake at dawn

[Malnaur]

Please add a config setting to wake up at dawn. Watching the clock leap in large intervals and having to close the character window and THEN hit space is beyond clunky and unreliable. Minecraft had this right all along. Alternatively, allow a choice when starting sleep to 'only sleep until dawn' if your bed will take you beyond it. Daytime is too short to waste.

[Maelstrom]

Considering Seraphs don't need sleep, why go to sleep at all?  There is so much to do early game that the night can be used to get stuff done (like on night #1, forming the initial clay items or knapping more tools for the following days adventures), even if there's a drifter choir serenading me.  Even late game I'm still pulling all nighters getting stuff done.

[Malnaur]

22 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

Considering Seraphs don't need sleep, why go to sleep at all?  There is so much to do early game that the night can be used to get stuff done (like on night #1, forming the initial clay items or knapping more tools for the following days adventures), even if there's a drifter choir serenading me.  Even late game I'm still pulling all nighters getting stuff done.

#1: You do you. Let me do me. Comments like this shut down conversation rather than foster it.

#2: The game, even if you make the world smaller but absolutely at default config, requires DAYS of travel to get much done once you can survive at all. There is NOTHING to do as you wait out the night in a hole in the ground except cook some food and sleep. Now, given the long travel times, every daylight minute is precious and the current mechanic screws that up. That said, there are always down nights when you are waiting for timed events and don't need anything crafted, so unless you are pulling all nighters every night you have this dilemma.

#3: I asked for an option (minecraft wakes you up at dawn no matter what), so see #1.

#4: If you have a cold climate (~northern) base, you fall into a seasonal rhythm where winter is crafting and summer is doing. With short summer nights, the problem is most acute.

[Maelstrom]

18 hours ago, Malnaur said:

#1: You do you. Let me do me. Comments like this shut down conversation rather than foster it.

Hello pot, this is kettle.

In spite of your spite, I was offering an alternative perspective, which seems to have struck some kind of nerve.  To your point number 2, there are plenty of resources within 1,000 blocks of spawn to give you plenty to do for at least the first 24-36 hours of game play.  But you seem to have your panties in such a twist that you'll see the world through your blinders.  So you do you, but at least be mature enough to be less abrasive when disagreeing with people.

[Malnaur]

34 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

Hello pot, this is kettle.

In spite of your spite, I was offering an alternative perspective, which seems to have struck some kind of nerve.  To your point number 2, there are plenty of resources within 1,000 blocks of spawn to give you plenty to do for at least the first 24-36 hours of game play.  But you seem to have your panties in such a twist that you'll see the world through your blinders.  So you do you, but at least be mature enough to be less abrasive when disagreeing with people.

So, read my response again, which was both polite and without ad hominem content, and then read yours, and consider how we are communicating. You seem to assume I am a newbie who simply doesn't understand the game yet. As I'm approaching 1000 hours of play, I think I understand the basics pretty well. There is a species of forum dweller that takes it on themselves to point out to everyone else that what they perceive as weaknesses are simply their failure to appreciate the perfection of the game as it is. The point of early access is to give the type of feedback I gave (here in the SUGGESTIONS forum). You didn't provide an opinion of my suggestion, you expressed an opinion about my 'faulty' game play. It would be hypocritical of me to say you can't post what you did but, once again, comments like yours shut down conversation rather than foster it and this conversation is now so. Thanks.

[Maelstrom]

Your 14 posts and join date of 6 months ago really shows that 1,000 hours of play.  While everything in your post indicated a newb.  You assume I was pointing out perceived "faulty" game play but apparently fail to see that I asked a question, then respond with vitriol.

I think you fail to understand this forum.  In case you hadn't noticed here's a screenshot of the forum header.  To which I was providing my perspective.

 

With this I will bow out of this thread and leave you in peace.

[Malnaur]

~741 hours solo plus a bunch of multiplayer on my self hosted server.

Trolls gotta troll. I guess I spend my time playing the game rather than posting my 'thoughts' constantly.

Edited January 10 by Malnaur

[Thorfinn]

I have nothing against the option, just that from my point of view, whatever time was spent on development of that feature would be utterly wasted because it's an option I cannot imagine a single situation in which I would find it useful. Not in the current game design, anyway. There is always something you can be doing to improve your situation, and there is no benefit at all to sleeping, only a cost. But if someday sleeping provides a benefit of some sort -- substantially reduced hunger rate, faster healing (though healing in a non-combat situation is a non-issue by no more than end of day 1) -- anything, I'd reconsider whether it might be of use.

[Malnaur]

11 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

I have nothing against the option, just that from my point of view, whatever time was spent on development of that feature would be utterly wasted because it's an option I cannot imagine a single situation in which I would find it useful. Not in the current game design, anyway. There is always something you can be doing to improve your situation, and there is no benefit at all to sleeping, only a cost. But if someday sleeping provides a benefit of some sort -- substantially reduced hunger rate, faster healing (though healing in a non-combat situation is a non-issue by no more than end of day 1) -- anything, I'd reconsider whether it might be of use.

What can I spend the night profitably doing when I am away from my base traveling and the drifters are swarming? Even at base, you claim you always have important tasks to accomplish every night, all night? I imagine you don't even have a bed? Ever?

BTW, the sleep machinery is already there. They need to add maybe 2 lines of code to add a check for dawn as well as elapsed total time. I'm including adding the option selection code. OK, three lines of code.

Edited January 10 by Malnaur

[Thorfinn]

2 hours ago, Malnaur said:

What can I spend the night profitably doing when I am away from my base traveling and the drifters are swarming?

I don't know. Travel? You can outrun drifters. The only guys you can't outrun that you have to worry about are the brown bears. Those you just have to outmaneuver.

There are other answers, too, depending on the purpose of your travel. If all you are doing is looking for purpleheart, yeah, you will probably have to bed down. Or alternatively, not look for purpleheart...

 

2 hours ago, Malnaur said:

Even at base, you claim you always have important tasks to accomplish every night, all night?

I don't much distinguish between night and day. It makes no difference at all in mining, cooking, clay forming, smithing, casting, knapping, leatherworking, beekeeping, animal husbandry, crafting, etc., and very little in planting, harvesting, woodchopping, sticking, collecting peat/clay/dirt, etc. I suppose if I were so inclined, I'd add chiseling to that list, but that part of the game does not really appeal to me. 

 

2 hours ago, Malnaur said:

I imagine you don't even have a bed? Ever?

Not since maybe 1.14.

Like I said, I've got nothing against it. I'd just prefer they used those "3 lines of code" on a feature I'd use. 

[BalmoraPete]

ill way in on this because i feel i understand both sides. when i first started playing this game i thought i had to be maximizing survival and i did not understand why anyone would ever build a bed because it saps your food level away while bringing you closer to winter so over 100 hours and i never built one. my base was completely dirt, why would anyone build out of anything but dirt, do they not care about time management? my base consisted of a honey honeycomb of large connected round rooms each built to the correct size maximizing the light value out of each light source before the light drop of would allow drifters to spawn. why ever build differently light is round rooms must be round to maximize value. pit kilns, charcoal production, clay sculpting, fields to harvest, bony soil to sift, an endless number of things to get done within the rooms of the base. building food storage underground with a door to role play? why are people doing this? cellar rooms must be built with an airlock made of hay, build it above ground for faster access. do people not care about food storage? why are they using doors they don't block as much light as a full block, why are people doing?

i could go on endlessly but ill stop. i no longer play like this because i discovered vintage story is an easy game once you understand how it works, survival is easy and only people who are bad worry about food and winter. instead of in game time management worry about real life time management. the dark pit of min maxing survival leaves you farming purely to create rot to make better dirt to make more food items to make more rot. miserable, your soul itself rots away surrounded by endless resources and treasure in a sad min maxed tomb  of dirt and rot. unless you are bad the first 40 nuggets should be collected in the first in game day night cycle. only two reed baskets carry 120 damage worth of spear heads when a drifter has only 12-48hp, combat is easy. the hardest thing in this game is the time spent looking for the best place to live and building an aesthetic house. an example is a place in the south that combines warm temps at low altitude and colder temps at high altitude allowing you to grow the maximum number of of the games available plants. the place would also have an aesthetic mountain to do this with in a region with temporal stability reasonable rainfall preferably a good local trader, and lastly its preferable to have a high amount of a valuable mineral resource locally. finding this eden is the real challenge in this game, combined with the artistic ability to create a chiseled wonder of a house. the bed is an item for noobs and people who have actually mastered the game. i would like maximum daytime while i search for a location and build a nice house i agree with malnaur.

[Malnaur]

@Thorfinn OK, I'm stumped. You say night makes no difference for essentially any outdoor activity but you handle drifters by outrunning them? When you can't even see where to run? In moments, on any night with rift activity above 'calm', you will be harassed by drifters. I truly cannot square your description with the game I've played so much of. What's your secret?

Edited January 10 by Malnaur

[Malnaur]

@BalmoraPete Thanks for your perspective. By mid-game you should have a steady surplus of the basic food and materials you need without a lot of work. I have no idea what these people are doing all night EVERY night. You certainly can't explore at night because you can't see anything. Thorfinn says they have no problem doing pretty much anything at night, which does not seem possible with drifters swarming most nights (not to mention the whole "can't see anything" part). VS was inspired by Minecraft AFAIK and Minecraft has sleeping until dawn baked into its DNA. This should not be a heavy lift for the devs or a controversial feature. I don't get it.

[Thorfinn]

This has gone way beyond a suggestions thread. In every reply here, I've said your's is a perfectly fine suggestion. It's just something I doubt I would ever use, and I'd prefer if programming time were spent on other priorities.

@BalmoraPete, yeah, sounds like you have taken it to a degree I never have. I build only two basic room shapes -- rectangle and whatever strikes my fancy at the moment, usually something that conforms to the location where I'm building. Split levels  and walk out basements are nice. And you are definitely right that it's not much of a survival game, even if you crank the hunger, spoil, etc. settings. I build a huge field for flax, then after maybe 2 plantings, everything goes fallow except for a single plot designed to be greenhouse-able. In all the games I've played, I've created exactly 1 block of high fertility soil, realized, "Well, this sucks" and never did it again. I've even taken to leaving terra preta right where it is, because there is so little point  -- I'm only going to use it a couple times in the whole game. Much quicker to find a relatively flat spot of medium fertility and plant the 8-around-1 in whatever best fits the terrain.

@Malnaur, I have a lot of time in the game, but I've never played a single player world for 700+ hours. What's that, like 9, 10 years? What I consider mid-game is maybe mid-summer of year 1. By early to mid fall, I usually have everything done the game has to offer except animals are often only 2nd generation, and, of course, chiseling. Yes, that includes at least a full set of steel tools (which basically requires at least 1 fully-upgraded windmill) and the Resonance Archives. Most of the time I'm starting a new game well before 100 days.

There's no real "secret" to ignoring drifters. Just light your work area with a plethora of torches so you can see them coming and learn when to run away. Rocks don't hurt all that much -- a poultice or two max while you run to the next job site. If you have 3 or 4 possible jobsites scoped out, its not that hard to cycle through them leading your pack of drifters. Yes, even at apocalyptic. Just don't run so far they despawn. At low, you often don't even have to use more than one site if you base your decision on where the rifts in the evening.

BTW, you want to know a good time to travel? During a temporal storm. You can't do much of anything else, unless for some reason you want to collect temporal gears. So you might as well see what the world has to offer, assuming you can imagine what it would look like if it weren't warping all over the place.

 

[BalmoraPete]

"Thorfinn says they have no problem doing pretty much anything at night, which does not seem possible with drifters swarming most nights (not to mention the whole "can't see anything" part)"

drifters spawn within a 25 block radius of a rift. you are not outrunning the drifters you out ruining the game attempting to spawn a rift on you. i don't know for sure but it seems like the game will only ever spawn so many rifts. so you can return to places during the same night and rifts will be gone if you needed a bit more time on that task. as you move around at night the game will struggle to keep up with you at anything below high rift activity dumping rifts on you as you go. simply finish your task and move on, dig clay until the rifts pop up and than go dig peat, than propick to find mineral veins. if i never stop moving i don't even see a single drifter, by the time it spawns a rift on me I'm long gone. even during daytime stringing tasks together with speed is the default way to play anyways. you can also buy time if you visualize the 25 block spawn radius of a rift and put a quick hole between you and where they would have to funnel as they egress the rift area. if you play correctly night shouldn't bother you. "You certainly can't explore at night because you can't see anything" i know its cheating to have the map enabled but its all you need, as long as you are running in the dark generating map data you can find traders clay peat any many other things from simply looking at the map. i still agree with malnaur that it is as you said its clunky to rest till morning, al i want to do is tell if the view from some hillside is pleasing enough view to build on.

lastly as much as it appeals to my crusty min maxing gamer side to dodge wolves and bears and rifts in the dark none of it means anything and i now find myself resting to morning more because i just don't care.

Edited January 10 by BalmoraPete

[Malnaur]

18 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

I have a lot of time in the game, but I've never played a single player world for 700+ hours. What's that, like 9, 10 years? What I consider mid-game is maybe mid-summer of year 1. By early to mid fall, I usually have everything done the game has to offer except animals are often only 2nd generation, and, of course, chiseling. Yes, that includes at least a full set of steel tools (which basically requires at least 1 fully-upgraded windmill) and the Resonance Archives.

@Thorfinn Are you using mods?

Edited January 10 by Malnaur

[kingdrasker]

It's not a bad suggestion, the way I fix this is I sleep in a hay bed during summertime and change up my bed if the nights get longer near winter.
You can also just try and wake yourself up, but you might wake up too early by accident. But you probably already know this
@Malnaur So by all means I agree why you want this feature. But personally, it didn't bother me that much, I just checked how late it was and went to sleep early if I wanted to travel the day after so I had all the light I needed.
The only reason I can say why I wouldn't want this feature is because (in my personal opinion, here I go again) it doesn't really make that much sense why you would wake up at that time. If I go to sleep at 2 am, I won't wake up at 5 am even if it gets bright outside. Maybe if you have chickens and a rooster those could wake you up early for example? (very cliché I know haha).
I sometimes do smithing and pottery at night as well to maximize my time. But same, I don't always have stuff to do at night. I just like daytime, living at a cozy house, looking at the amazing environments the team made, and doing everything at your own pace is so relaxing. Even if winter approaches faster, I still have enough time to get ready for it.
@BalmoraPete is also right. I put so much time into finding the perfect location for my pretty base lol.

 

Edited January 10 by kingdrasker

[sushieater]

8 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

I don't know. Travel? You can outrun drifters. The only guys you can't outrun that you have to worry about are the brown bears.

When I travel at night, there is a constant barrage of rocks. Besides the extremely annoying visual / sound effects (which bother me enough to not travel at night), they hurt a lot when you don't have armor. Lower tier armor than gambeson is a death trap - you likely won't be able to get away from predators and protection is completely inadequate for fighting them.

Once upon a time, when drifters didn't have ranged attacks, I would travel at night. Now it's too annoying.

Once upon a time, cancelling sleep was somewhat working and you could wake up early. Now it's completely broken.

[Maelstrom]

@Malnaur  My apologies for breaking my promise to not responding in this thread.  Please accept my apologies for my rude response to you yesterday.  It was not as gracious as I strive to be and I want to make amends for how I treated you by apologizing now and being more gracious in the future.

[Malnaur]

@Maelstrom Apology accepted.

[Thorfinn]

16 hours ago, Malnaur said:

@Thorfinn Are you using mods?

Depends on what I want to do each game. Minimal on new releases. Usually CarryOn, not for extra (if inconvenient) inventory,  but so I don't have to empty storage containers just to move them. Been fiddling with that new pair, Favorite and something that mimics Terraria's Sort To Chests. Often the fixed firepit, because it does automatically what I could have done manually. Pretty much stuff that I could be doing at night anyway. 

Once I'm satisfied I've experienced the game as intended I'll try out others' visions - Expanded Foods, Primitive Survival,  Wildcraft, Meteoric something(which could probably fall into utility category for as little difference as it makes to gameplay), the @Vinter Nacht mods, Medieval Expansion, etc. Not all at once, though.

[Malnaur]

9 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Depends on what I want to do each game. Minimal on new releases. Usually CarryOn, not for extra (if inconvenient) inventory,  but so I don't have to empty storage containers just to move them. Been fiddling with that new pair, Favorite and something that mimics Terraria's Sort To Chests. Often the fixed firepit, because it does automatically what I could have done manually. Pretty much stuff that I could be doing at night anyway. 

Once I'm satisfied I've experienced the game as intended I'll try out others' visions - Expanded Foods, Primitive Survival,  Wildcraft, Meteoric something(which could probably fall into utility category for as little difference as it makes to gameplay), the @Vinter Nacht mods, Medieval Expansion, etc. Not all at once, though.

OK. I don't see how you get to the end stage by Fall of the first year even working through the night and the math on animals says gen 2 is almost impossible on that time scale. That said, I would guess you have experienced less than "everything ...  the game has to offer" as I am still discovering new underground structures and new landscapes I haven't seen before and you cannot have done things like plant a fruit orchard (easily a two+ year activity) or built a substantial dwelling.

You and I have very different play styles and that's why I want options to suit mine without denying you yours. I ask for the same courtesy.

[Thorfinn]

7 hours ago, Malnaur said:

You and I have very different play styles and that's why I want options to suit mine without denying you yours. I ask for the same courtesy.

I'm not sure how I got to be the bad guy here. My first 3 posts were, "OK, that's a perfectly fine suggestion. I personally would never use it, and would prefer the time spent on other features." That's it. But apparently I can't say that? Because it's discourteous or something? Everything else in those posts was politely answering your specific questions.

I believe I was the first to point out that my game style is nothing like yours. Opening up the several versions I still have installed, it looks like what I considered to be a "full game" -- accomplishing whatever goals I set for that playthrough -- to be somewhere between 50 and 80 hours, compared to your 700+ and evidently still are not done. I don't doubt there are features that would be more worthwhile in that game style, but for the life of me, I don't see why you would care about that particular one. You don't play a time-critical game style, not at 9 years+ in. So why is it that important that you get the maximum hours of daylight? Whatever you don't get done today you can finish up tomorrow. Or next year. It's not like you are trying to beat the clock or play a speed-run or anything like that.

BTW, the bottleneck for sheep is the saw. If you want to do animal husbandry, you should be able to get them started that first month. Day 3 is typically easy if you are not pushing any other projects too hard. Chickens are another story. You need grain. Maybe you can forage enough, but more likely it's a project to get going in June. But like we agree, you are not going to get them much above Gen 1. So for me, that has become a, "Why bother?"

At a guess, I've probably seen most of the ruins, just not in the same world. But play enough worlds, and pretty soon you know where all the hidden stuff is in any set of ruins you come across.

You are right about fruit. Fruit is like high fertility soil. I did it once, realized it was not worth the effort, and never did it again. Same with the butterfly collection. Same with cunning traps for bears and drifters. "Why am I doing this?" I can generally accomplish everything I find interesting enough to bother doing within about a year. Why would I want to drag it out another few years, building the bridge to nowhere, and playing all the stuff that's not fun? When I have the alternative to start a new game...

 

[Malnaur]

7 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

I'm not sure how I got to be the bad guy here. My first 3 posts were, "OK, that's a perfectly fine suggestion. I personally would never use it, and would prefer the time spent on other features." That's it. But apparently I can't say that? Because it's discourteous or something? Everything else in those posts was politely answering your specific questions.

Forums like this are 'soft' voting venues where the devs will form opinions based on the feedback a post attracts. If they pay attention at all and don't use them as a honey trap to distract players from contacting them directly. Although certainly polite, your post was, in effect, a 'no' vote, whatever disclaimers you included. That's what I reacted to. What I would really prefer the devs focus on is fixing the myriad buggy and discrepant mechanics that are a continuous source of minor irritation and will never get fixed if they continue relentlessly pushing out new features. Technical debt has ruined many promising games and I would like this one to live a long and happy life.

[Thorfinn]

Of course its likely a soft poll. That's why I bothered to respond. To say that IMO, "Wake at Dawn" is a low priority for me.

That's not a bug. That's working as intended. There is a constant effort to make Vintage Story NOT a clone of that other voxel game which is deliberately not named  Might be just a vision thing, but considering how ruthless M$ has been to small developers in the past, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a legal reason for maintaining the distance.

If this were as as popular as you think, don't you think someone would have already modded it in? The reason is likely that there's no reason to create a mod that is no more than typing, 

/time set sunrise

For, what, the 5th time this thread, I don't object to a "Wake at Dawn" option. To me, it's ultra-low priority, as its something I can't see myself using ever until there is a substantial change in what sleeping means. Particularly when your fondest desire is just a dozen keystrokes you can do now, and, if you cared to, assign it to a macro, and it becomes just a single keypress.

Edited January 11 by Thorfinn