Ideas to Make Vintage Story Even Better - Better Weather, Ocean Animals, Birds, Cats & Predators

[Adnyeus]

Hey everyone,

First off, huge thanks to the devs for everything they’ve done with Vintage Story. I’m totally hooked on the game, and the updates have been fantastic! The game feels really special, and I’m excited to see where it goes next.

I have a few ideas that I think could make the world feel even more alive and expand the wilderness:

1. Better Weather: It’d be awesome to see more dangerous weather events added to the game, like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and volcanic activity. This could add a whole new level of excitement and challenge to the game!
   * I can understand that some builders and people might be upset by this, and constantly having your house destroyed would definitely be unfun.

2. More Ocean Animals: I’d love to see a wider variety of ocean creatures. Things like sharks, octopuses, squids, and dolphins for saltwater, and freshwater animals like turtles, crocodiles, and otters would be amazing additions.

3. Birds: Birds could really bring the world to life. Sea birds for the normal biome, ravens, and tropical birds like cockatiels, toucans, and macaws would be great to see. Plus, being able to tame them as pets would be a fun feature.

4. Cats and Predators: One of the biggest gaps I see in the game is cats and predators. Domestic cats would be great to have, but adding wild species like tigers, lions, lynxes, and snow leopards would make the different biomes feel much more complete and immersive.
   
   *Yes, I know there are mods for these things, but I personally prefer playing vanilla and would love to see these features added directly to the game. I've had some bad experiences with mods in the past, particularly when it comes to their longevity and updates, so I enjoy the stability and consistency of vanilla content.

Thanks again to the devs for all the hard work on Vintage Story! It’s a gem of a game, and I’m excited to see what comes next! 

 

 

Illustration images

Edited December 17, 2024 by Divočák

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Divočák said:

Better Weather: It’d be awesome to see more dangerous weather events added to the game, like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and volcanic activity. This could add a whole new level of excitement and challenge to the game!

Excitement? Or frustration? The challenge would certainly be there, but I don't see getting a build that you spent hours perfecting wiped out in a natural disaster being very fun. Or losing your high level livestock to a tornado, or an earthquake perhaps striking while you're underground and burying you alive(goodbye items!). Most unfortunate occurrences that are in the game right now are entirely preventable with good preparedness and situational awareness from the player. Natural disasters are a different story; yes, you can prepare to an extent, but in a lot of cases you don't have much(if any) warning, and the "preparation" is oftentimes more about cleaning up whatever mess it leaves behind than it is avoiding the damage.

As a mod though, it'd be great, so players that want that kind of content can add the mod to their games. I don't see it working for the vanilla game at all though, unless natural disasters can be turned off(and should be by default anyway) so that players don't have to deal with them.

3 hours ago, Divočák said:

More Ocean Animals: I’d love to see a wider variety of ocean creatures. Things like sharks, octopuses, squids, and dolphins for saltwater, and freshwater animals like turtles, crocodiles, and otters would be amazing additions.

I'm sure we'll get these sooner or later. I think we were supposed to have coral reefs to explore in 1.20, but they weren't quite working right and have been pushed back until they're ready.

3 hours ago, Divočák said:

Birds: Birds could really bring the world to life. Sea birds for the normal biome, ravens, and tropical birds like cockatiels, toucans, and macaws would be great to see. Plus, being able to tame them as pets would be a fun feature.

Another feature I'm sure we'll get sometime in the future.

3 hours ago, Divočák said:

Cats and Predators: One of the biggest gaps I see in the game is cats and predators. Domestic cats would be great to have, but adding wild species like tigers, lions, lynxes, and snow leopards would make the different biomes feel much more complete and immersive.

Like the above two, I'm sure we'll get cats(both big and small) as well. One change I would make to big cats, in order to make them a little different from the bears and wolves we already have as predators--perhaps give them a larger detection radius, but make them stalk the player instead of outright charging to attack. I believe Fauna of the Stone Age does this with their big cats, as well as making them faster as well, so they're entities you really don't want to encounter unprepared.

 

[JAGIELSKI]

I'd also would like a way to domesticate wolves into dogs. As for weather, gotta disagree with @LadyWYT on that one. If such effects would be added, I'd imagine there would be ways to mitigate it by building foundations from earthquake-resistent blocks, building stone buildings that would be barely moved by a hurricane/tornado, etc. Or just being smart and not build your place near a volcano or somewhere where earthquakes/tornadoes are common.

[Deaderpan]

im willing to bet real money that if earthquakes get added to the game, they would become on of the most hated features by the community and eventually removed. yes more ways for the environment to interact with the player is good, but with the chiselling system it would suck all the fun out of the game as youd have to keep track of potentially hundreds of customized blocks just to have a chance of repairing your bases to what they looked like before. thats not to mention how on earth the devs would figure out and then code items placed on the floor and shelves like crock pots are meant to react to an earthquake.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Deaderpan said:

im willing to bet real money that if earthquakes get added to the game, they would become on of the most hated features by the community and eventually removed. yes more ways for the environment to interact with the player is good, but with the chiselling system it would suck all the fun out of the game as youd have to keep track of potentially hundreds of customized blocks just to have a chance of repairing your bases to what they looked like before. thats not to mention how on earth the devs would figure out and then code items placed on the floor and shelves like crock pots are meant to react to an earthquake.

Precisely my point.

2 hours ago, JAGIELSKI said:

As for weather, gotta disagree with @LadyWYT on that one. If such effects would be added, I'd imagine there would be ways to mitigate it by building foundations from earthquake-resistent blocks, building stone buildings that would be barely moved by a hurricane/tornado, etc. Or just being smart and not build your place near a volcano or somewhere where earthquakes/tornadoes are common.

Keeping in mind that the setting is the late Middle Ages. Not saying they didn't have their own disaster-proofing back then, but it's not the same level as it is today. You could go the Jonas tech route, I suppose, and make a device that counters extreme weather events. However, Jonas tech is very rare, and very late game. The player still has to survive long enough to reach that level, without getting so frustrated with things they can't really prevent at all that they quit playing.

In regards to building things out of stone to resist damage from earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and the like...I'd highly recommend taking a look at before and after pictures of areas hit by disasters like this. We build stuff out of steel and concrete today and it still gets torn apart by natural disasters.

I'd also argue that we already do have natural disasters in the game(or perhaps unnatural), in the form of temporal storms. I'll also point out that while there is plenty of advance warning for them, and they are fairly easy to deal with, I've seen more than a few complaints about how much some players hate them. I'd be surprised if a more realistic natural disaster that actually wrecks your base was more popular.

[Adnyeus]

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Excitement? Or frustration? The challenge would certainly be there, but I don't see getting a build that you spent hours perfecting wiped out in a natural disaster being very fun. Or losing your high level livestock to a tornado, or an earthquake perhaps striking while you're underground and burying you alive(goodbye items!). Most unfortunate occurrences that are in the game right now are entirely preventable with good preparedness and situational awareness from the player. Natural disasters are a different story; yes, you can prepare to an extent, but in a lot of cases you don't have much(if any) warning, and the "preparation" is oftentimes more about cleaning up whatever mess it leaves behind than it is avoiding the damage.

As a mod though, it'd be great, so players that want that kind of content can add the mod to their games. I don't see it working for the vanilla game at all though, unless natural disasters can be turned off(and should be by default anyway) so that players don't have to deal with them.

I'm sure we'll get these sooner or later. I think we were supposed to have coral reefs to explore in 1.20, but they weren't quite working right and have been pushed back until they're ready.

Another feature I'm sure we'll get sometime in the future.

Like the above two, I'm sure we'll get cats(both big and small) as well. One change I would make to big cats, in order to make them a little different from the bears and wolves we already have as predators--perhaps give them a larger detection radius, but make them stalk the player instead of outright charging to attack. I believe Fauna of the Stone Age does this with their big cats, as well as making them faster as well, so they're entities you really don't want to encounter unprepared.

 

Thanks for your feedback 

[Adnyeus]

2 hours ago, Deaderpan said:

im willing to bet real money that if earthquakes get added to the game, they would become on of the most hated features by the community and eventually removed. yes more ways for the environment to interact with the player is good, but with the chiselling system it would suck all the fun out of the game as youd have to keep track of potentially hundreds of customized blocks just to have a chance of repairing your bases to what they looked like before. thats not to mention how on earth the devs would figure out and then code items placed on the floor and shelves like crock pots are meant to react to an earthquake.

It would be cool if that weather events are rare, like tornado once per 1 year or 2 years so player have lot of time to prepare

 

But I must also be fair: it will be painful for people who are into building. For example, I'm into challenge and brutality, so I can understand why people might hate it.

Edited December 17, 2024 by Divočák

[LadyWYT]

5 minutes ago, Divočák said:

Thanks for your feedback 

I'll also clarify that I don't necessarily mind if some sort of natural disasters make it into the vanilla game, provided that it's an optional challenge, similar to the cave-in mechanics or fires started by lightning. I do think though, that there are other ideas that would be much more popular and add much more value to the gameplay overall.

4 minutes ago, Divočák said:

It would be cool if that weather events are rare, like tornado once per 1 year or 2 years so player have lot of time to prepare

That would help, but the drawback I see here is that if the events strike without warning, you've then got the pressure that you have to make disaster-proofing a priority, as you don't know when one will strike. If you're focusing your attention on that, that's time and resources that you aren't devoting to other tasks you need/want to do, which can end up very frustrating especially when no disaster hits for a very long time. Likewise, it would suck to sink a lot of work into say, preparing defenses against an earthquake, only to get hit by a tornado instead and have a lot of damage done because you didn't prepare correctly. You could also have the worst luck, and have a natural disaster hit early on and wipe your progress before you've had a chance to prepare as well.

Alternately, you could treat natural disasters like temporal storms, and give some sort of advance warning so the player isn't blindsided. However, it seems like that would be a different kind of frustration, since it takes time to fortify things and while you could hide in a hole and be fine, your stuff can't. Now that I think about it though...the biggest issue with an advance warning is probably natural disasters only affecting certain regions. In that case, you could just take a trip to a different region for a few days so your base chunks aren't loaded, and then return. No loaded chunks means nothing exciting happens, which defeats the purpose of disasters.

[traugdor]

Imagine you're sheltering from a temporal storm. It's the nastiest one yet. You're pretty sure the bowtorns and shivers are coming together to make a new type of nasty monster to deal with.

Somewhere outside, is a bear eyeing your abode waiting for you to come outside.

Then an earthquake strikes out of nowhere (because real earthquakes cannot be predicted without majorly advanced technology that doesn't exist in VS). Your house collapses. Suddenly 20 drifters, 3 shivers, and 19 bowtorn all decide you're the most dangerous thing out there and the bear is hungry.

You my friend are screwed. If that happens to me in-game, I'm turning it off and deleting that world.

#nopeRightOnOuttaHere

Same thing, really, for hurricanes, tornadoes, and volcanic activity. It's not going to be fun, not even in the slightest bit. You are suggesting an unmitigated disaster on top of an already harsh world that actively punishes you for daring to exist.

Edited December 17, 2024 by traugdor

[Adnyeus]

1 hour ago, traugdor said:

Imagine you're sheltering from a temporal storm. It's the nastiest one yet. You're pretty sure the bowtorns and shivers are coming together to make a new type of nasty monster to deal with.

Somewhere outside, is a bear eyeing your abode waiting for you to come outside.

Then an earthquake strikes out of nowhere (because real earthquakes cannot be predicted without majorly advanced technology that doesn't exist in VS). Your house collapses. Suddenly 20 drifters, 3 shivers, and 19 bowtorn all decide you're the most dangerous thing out there and the bear is hungry.

You my friend are screwed. If that happens to me in-game, I'm turning it off and deleting that world.

#nopeRightOnOuttaHere

Same thing, really, for hurricanes, tornadoes, and volcanic activity. It's not going to be fun, not even in the slightest bit. You are suggesting an unmitigated disaster on top of an already harsh world that actively punishes you for daring to exist.

sounds like fun  

[Adnyeus]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Precisely my point.

Keeping in mind that the setting is the late Middle Ages. Not saying they didn't have their own disaster-proofing back then, but it's not the same level as it is today. You could go the Jonas tech route, I suppose, and make a device that counters extreme weather events. However, Jonas tech is very rare, and very late game. The player still has to survive long enough to reach that level, without getting so frustrated with things they can't really prevent at all that they quit playing.

In regards to building things out of stone to resist damage from earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and the like...I'd highly recommend taking a look at before and after pictures of areas hit by disasters like this. We build stuff out of steel and concrete today and it still gets torn apart by natural disasters.

I'd also argue that we already do have natural disasters in the game(or perhaps unnatural), in the form of temporal storms. I'll also point out that while there is plenty of advance warning for them, and they are fairly easy to deal with, I've seen more than a few complaints about how much some players hate them. I'd be surprised if a more realistic natural disaster that actually wrecks your base was more popular.

btw do you have your personal prediction for 1.21? what for update it will be?
here - made different forum about it

 

Edited December 17, 2024 by Divočák

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Divočák said:

btw do you have your personal prediction for 1.21? what for update it will be?
here - made different forum about it

 

Hmmmm...not especially, other than I don't expect any major lore content release. Most of my attention on the update front has been thinking over the revelations of story chapter two, and what could be coming next on that front.

[Thorfinn]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

...or fires started by lightning.

I'm willing to bet that this is going to be phased in as a default, maybe even only able to be shut off in n00b worlds. Right now, lightning rods only really protect your animals. Yes, I've died to lightning, a few times anyway, but that's not anything you can prevent if you are out and about. But it would not surprise me if the game eventually turned to encouraging you to put lightning rods on your world's Notre Dame Cathedral.

Natural disasters, meh. Don't care that much either way. I don't spend hour after hour chiseling for the sake of chiseling. Or for any reason, for that matter. But I can definitely see the points of view of those who don't share the Frank Lloyd Wright school of architecture. Such a mod wouldn't make it into my Vanilla Plus, but one of my challenge settings, sure.

As a suggestion, be sure to check the Roadmap. It's a safe bet all those animals are what the Roadmap means. 

[Adnyeus]

22 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

I'm willing to bet that this is going to be phased in as a default, maybe even only able to be shut off in n00b worlds. Right now, lightning rods only really protect your animals. Yes, I've died to lightning, a few times anyway, but that's not anything you can prevent if you are out and about. But it would not surprise me if the game eventually turned to encouraging you to put lightning rods on your world's Notre Dame Cathedral.

Natural disasters, meh. Don't care that much either way. I don't spend hour after hour chiseling for the sake of chiseling. Or for any reason, for that matter. But I can definitely see the points of view of those who don't share the Frank Lloyd Wright school of architecture. Such a mod wouldn't make it into my Vanilla Plus, but one of my challenge settings, sure.

As a suggestion, be sure to check the Roadmap. It's a safe bet all those animals are what the Roadmap means. 

Do you personally use lightning rods?

[Thorfinn]

Now that I don't bother with animals, no. If I get hit, I die. I don't build out of wood or thatch anymore, so while lightning can start fires, it's risk free. All except a direct hit  on my sea-level farm, I guess. In no case does having one make any difference.

If animals became a little more attractive, I sure would. But I think the game is probably headed in the opposite direction.

[Adnyeus]

49 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Now that I don't bother with animals, no. If I get hit, I die. I don't build out of wood or thatch anymore, so while lightning can start fires, it's risk free. All except a direct hit  on my sea-level farm, I guess. In no case does having one make any difference.

If animals became a little more attractive, I sure would. But I think the game is probably headed in the opposite direction.

Ah, I have fire turned off on the server because people abuse it a lot for griefing. I can say that spreading fire across the forest is the most popular thing among griefers nowadays. They join, make a torch, track to a player’s base with their client side mods, and if the base is not in a claim zone, they will grief it and burn it down. If it is in a claim zone, they will burn everything around it until nothing remains, and then they leave.

This can be a big issue for people who are trying to build a new server or community. I can also see how it could become a popular tactic among these ''players''

[Thorfinn]

Yeah, I only play on servers with other people I know. There are some jerks out there. That's why I initially switched to non-combustible building materials. You still have to remember to claim it, but if you keep the bushes and grass away from the house, it's not too risky.

I was talking about the new option to allow lightning to start fires. It's not as scary as it sounds because it's almost always raining when you have lightning, so you don't get forest fires unless the lightning strike is right at the edge of the rainstorm.

[Adnyeus]

12 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Yeah, I only play on servers with other people I know. There are some jerks out there. That's why I initially switched to non-combustible building materials. You still have to remember to claim it, but if you keep the bushes and grass away from the house, it's not too risky.

I was talking about the new option to allow lightning to start fires. It's not as scary as it sounds because it's almost always raining when you have lightning, so you don't get forest fires unless the lightning strike is right at the edge of the rainstorm.

 

If there is an option to disable fire for specific objects, it would eliminate this type of griefing. For example, you could disable fire for grass or leaves.

Alternatively, there could be a specific summer event when there are dry and hot conditions, where you can only set fire to grass during that specific condition.
Outside of game, if you try to set grass on fire, it won't work. you must have really dry and hot area with high temps