v1.20.4-rc.1/2/3/4 - Lore Update: The Journey

[Tyron]

Dear Extraordinary Survivalists 
v1.20.4-rc.1/2/3 and now -rc.4, all unstable releases, can now be downloaded through the account manager.

As some of you have noticed, our servers were acting up a bit at times over the last couple of weeks. We have now upped the specs on all of them so I am cautiously optimistic that all services should run smooth again ... at least until we get yet another huge influx of new players
Rest assured, we are already making preparations to ensure that we can scale quickly if there is a future need.

Taking a break from the server work this weekend, I was able to gather up some of the work the team has been doing in the meanwhile, to bring you another update! Running the Official Public Server has been especially helpful for us in determining what needed additional attention in our multiplayer server hosting software.

Please note, this version 1.20.4-rc.1 is not network compatible with previous versions, i.e. in multiplayer, you won't be able to join a 1.20.3 server if you have updated your game to 1.20.4-rc.1 and the server has not: both server and player would need to be running the same game version.

[Edit:] Also released rc.2. Changelog below.
[Edit:] Also released rc.3 to fix another issue
[Edit:] Also released rc.4 to fix sound issues

Screenshot by ZerSchitzler, shared on #screenshots on Discord

Game updates (rc.4)

• Fixed: Several mobs missing second ropetiable property, and so weren't actually ropetieable.
• Fixed: Should fix sounds no longer playing after a while
• Fixed: Can pick up ingot molds while holding a mold

Game updates (rc.2 / rc.3)

• Fixed: Sounds no longer playing after some minutes, in worlds with many bloomeries, querns and translocators around
• Fixed: Overhead chat message no longer displayed
• Fixed: Log spam with charcoal pits when it has ground stored objects inside the charcoal pit (BlockFirepit.IsFirewoodPile)
• Fixed: Server side exceptions thrown by a bowl of meal in water
• Fixed: If clients leaving while connecting a new player was not connected to the server from the queue
• Fixed: Connection queue sometimes not connecting next player from the queue
• API Fixed: Fixed mod incompatibility with RecipeRegistryBase, caused in 1.20.4-rc.1
   

Game updates (rc.1)

• Feature: For multiplayer servers, added a connection queue for when a game server is full (Experimental, off by default. Set MaxClientsInQueue in serverconfig.json to a value above 0 to activate it - the number determines how many players are allowed to sit waiting in the queue)
• Feature: For multiplayer, added a ModWhiteList for better control of used mods on game servers (set via serverconfig.json)
• Tweak: The decorative chimney block now covers entire bottom of block, and provides a solid downward face for creating a room
• Tweak: Interactions with a tamed Elk, such as mounting/unmounting and attaching/removing attachments, is now only possible for the Elk's owner. (As a reminder, attach a medallion to an Elk's brow to claim ownership)
• Tweak: Further reduced spawn quantity of new mobs during Temporal Storms
• Tweak: Some animals need to be of a certain generation before they can be roped. Goats are now rope tieable
• Tweak: Added tongs transforms to a large number of metal and ceramic items
• Performance tweaks:
  • Fix a source of server-side lag spikes (Technical info: Addresses 5-200ms despawn times for individual entities, entities should now be despawning in microseconds)
  • Reduce server RAM use by approximately 82MB through reducing duplicate Block/Item/Entity data
  • Doubles the client side framerate around lots of entities, e.g. when spawning 2000 chickens
  • Reduce overkill butterfly spawn attempts
• Tweak: Reduce error log spam when too many sounds get loaded, now prints a notification 2x per second instead
• Tweak: On client startup, silently re-try to verify the single player session a second time if the first one fails
• Tweak: Allow /wgen pregen command to be run from console
• Tweak: On World creation when the worldname is empty choose a random one again
• Tweak: Fix role change audit log: caller name, role and target player name were not in the correct order
• Tweak: Update community translations
• Fixed: Should permanently fix player phasing into blocks when getting damaged
• Fixed: Minimap opening at game start when it was supposed to be turned off
• Fixed: Beehive Kiln instantly firing blocks inside
• Fixed: Colors in character customization screen now named correctly
• Fixed: Should prevent tamed Elks attacking players after suffering fall damage and similar
• Fixed: Should fix Elk teleporting into Lava/Boiling water
• Fixed: Water rendering at the wall of a solid block (e.g. on a chiseled trough)
• Fixed: Light brown raw daub recipe only allow each sand to work with one clay type, rather than either sand with either clay type.
• Fixed: Rift Ward was blocking rifts even when not activated
• Fixed: Devastated soil and rock were chiselable
• Fixed: Treasure Hunter Trader should drop item when giving a map to a player whose inventory is full
• Fixed: Treasure maps could get broken by regenerating/deleting chunks and cause server-side errors
• Fixed: 2nd Story Chapter boss stuck in mid air
• Fixed: Land Claims would not work properly for large ones like the Devastation area after a restart
• Fixed: Maybe fixes players able to break the Jonas lens on the tower
• Fixed: Chat not opening on Broadcast messages like Temporal Storm warnings.
• Fixed: Command: Waypoint modify command did not check the waypoint index correctly and could cause an error
• Fixed: Server throwing an exception when the masterserver sends an invalid response
• Fixed: Rare issue where player group commands op/deop/kick would not work properly on some servers
• API Change: Certain elements of blocks, items and entities which are intended for use on client-side only - for example, Textures and ShapeInventory - are now null on a server after game start. (Mods are not expected to make use of these on the server-side: if a coded mod experiences new "Object reference not set" errors in game versions 1.20.4+, it may need to check its code to ensure that code referencing these things runs only on client-side.)
• API Change: Added Block.CanAcceptFallOnto() method, for thread safety this must be used if implementing Block.OnFallOnto()

 

View full record

[StCatharines]

10 minutes ago, Tyron said:

• Tweak: Performance: Fix a source of server side lag spikes (Technical info: Addresses 5 to 200ms despawn times for individual entities, should now be despawning in microseconds)

Thank youuuu!

[Voldemort]

You saved my wife by this update. thanks

[Thorfinn]

Anyone else getting sounds dropping out after 10-15 minutes? Sounds like bees still function, sounds of tool usage or drifters/bowtorn/shivers do not? Happened three times in a row.

[FyreEagle]

Please fix the Immersive First Person option, it's totally ruined my enjoyment. Body disconnects from the camera all the time, and animations like mining have become very rapid and stiff.

[CipherStormwolf]

12 hours ago, Tyron said:

Fixed: Should fix Elk teleporting into Lava/Boiling water

Well that is a horrible bug. Also fine work on the lag-fix, it was annoying.

[RowanSkie]

15 hours ago, Tyron said:

Fixed: Beehive Kiln instantly firing blocks inside

Is this what this mod is fixing about?

[StCatharines]

On 2/8/2025 at 12:47 PM, Tyron said:

• Fixed: Sounds no longer playing after some minutes, in worlds with many bloomeries, querns and translocators around

While I haven't experienced this one directly, I've heard from other people on my server having this exact issue! Fingers crossed that'll be the end of it.

[RapscallionGamer]

2 hours ago, StCatharines said:

While I haven't experienced this one directly, I've heard from other people on my server having this exact issue! Fingers crossed that'll be the end of it.

I have experienced this.  In a fresh world, happened twice now after about almost an hour, def under 60 minutes.  Also, I can hear the wind, nothing else though.

[goblinx13]

plz tone down the shiver and bowthorn damage, as we experienced the fast shivers should be anoying and not fast and deadly, they have to be fast and itchy.

the spwan rate in temporal and sometimes daily was not the only problem, 1 hit kills destroys the whole playthrough, plz watch YT GGBeyonds 1.20 experience and listen to him,

he is right.

ty for your work; i hope this game will be playable again, cause i enjoyed the temp storms but the new mobs are not balanced in my opinion

Edited February 10, 2025 by goblinx13

[Voldemort]

1 hour ago, goblinx13 said:

plz tone down the shiver and bowthorn damage, as we experienced the fast shivers should be anoying and not fast and deadly, they have to be fast and itchy.

the spwan rate in temporal and sometimes daily was not the only problem, 1 hit kills destroys the whole playthrough, plz watch YT GGBeyonds 1.20 experience and listen to him,

he is right.

ty for your work; i hope this game will be playable again, cause i enjoyed the temp storms but the new mobs are not balanced in my opinion

that would make game again boring and easy.

when you get full armor you are fine. 

[CipherStormwolf]

6 hours ago, goblinx13 said:

plz tone down the shiver and bowthorn damage, as we experienced the fast shivers should be anoying and not fast and deadly, they have to be fast and itchy.

the spwan rate in temporal and sometimes daily was not the only problem, 1 hit kills destroys the whole playthrough, plz watch YT GGBeyonds 1.20 experience and listen to him,

he is right.

ty for your work; i hope this game will be playable again, cause i enjoyed the temp storms but the new mobs are not balanced in my opinion

The combat overall is not fun, ranged is okay, needs quivers for arrows and spears and just quality of life stuff to carry your tools (there are many in the game after all) like toolbelts to free up some slots > needs to be balanced of course. Oh and healing items should just be used much slower the more armor you are wearing instead of healing less, that would make more sense.

 

Melee combat: The game uses some kind of system that feels like hitscan and enemies can hit you very easily even you are moving and it does not feel fair at all when they throw stones backwards to hit you perfectly. I beat the first boss and it was a drag. Weapons like swords that should slice and hit everything in front of you, do not hit because you only 1. stab and also 2. dont actually seem to have a proper hitbox for the weapon. It feels very wrong. I hope they will fix it.

Example: 

 

Light armor/mobile characters should not be punished like that. More weapon types are also welcome, where are my spears and bigger shield combos? Only small throwing spears? Axes, hammers? Chance to stun for hammers? Alternate playstyles are welcome, more opportunities to roleplay. That should be one of the next big projects for the game. One can hope.

[CipherStormwolf]

Oh and on topic of the update the sound goes off even after the fix. Seems to be slightly longer now till it happens or at least that is what it seems.

[goblinx13]

6 hours ago, Adnyeus said:

that would make game again boring and easy.

when you get full armor you are fine. 

yeah true but! i dont want to live in a 1 x 1 x 2 hole for every temp storm till u get a good armor

[Dilan Rona]

Bowthorn can be quite an irratant. Especially when they manage to hit me without me seeing them at first. And I am used to ground level attacks from Drifters. Once I see them though, I dispatch them, or at the very least chase them away a good distance before running away from them.

As for the Shivers, they are cute/annoying. Dont pay them much attention at first, as I do enjoy their antics a bit, before killing them.

Drifters imo are still a greater threat than Bowthorn or Shivers.

[Thorfinn]

11 hours ago, goblinx13 said:

1 hit kills destroys the whole playthrough, plz watch YT GGBeyonds 1.20 experience

I checked it out yesterday when someone else mentioned it.

I thought most replies were off-base. There were only a handful who were right, IMO.

One should not expect to pick up a game and play it at hardest mode, even if you have played earlier versions, and especially if you were among those who complained and demonstrated that the game was too easy. The game has lots of settings. Choose some easier settings and work your way up to Hardest. People are not shy about suggesting new sliders and options. What's wrong with using the ones we already have?

What should probably be done, though, is changing Basic Survival to be, say, 20 HP, and creature strength to 75%. It really is too much to expect of new players. Or maybe even add a New Player playstyle, and not expect new players to understand all the interactions between the various settings. HS and Exploration don't really help much to prepare you for things like storms.

Edited February 10, 2025 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

What should probably be done, though, is changing Basic Survival to be, say, 20 HP, and creature strength to 75%. It really is too much to expect of new players. Or maybe even add a New Player playstyle, and not expect new players to understand all the interactions between the various settings. HS and Exploration don't really help much to prepare you for things like storms.

I dunno, the Standard difficulty feels mostly fine. I do agree that it will probably be pretty brutal for brand new players, but I also think that's okay given what Vintage Story is. The struggle is real, the learning curve is steep, but I can't say that it ever felt entirely unfair either. When I was a new player, I more felt pushed to hone my own skills and adjust settings as needed whenever I had trouble.

That being said, some sort of "Tutorial Difficulty" wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea either. Let it be as you said--similar to the Standard, but with a few of the challenges toned down a tad in order to avoid killing newbies quite so easily.

[Thorfinn]

22 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

some sort of "Tutorial Difficulty"

Yeah, maybe that's better than changing Standard. I didn't think it was all that bad, either, but I also had quite a little play time in, plus had experienced the shivers through their development, so got time to figure them out without having the bowtorn lumped in at the same time. I still got ripped apart quite a bit while caving, but since I looked at it more as learning how to deal with the new challenges, rather than my permanent forever home, it was no big deal.

But that's why I thought there needed to be an easier mode that is just click on the playstyle. After playing a little while, you know what kind of a difference 10 HP vs. 15 HP makes, but the n00b does not. It's one of the reasons I am skeptical about adding even more sliders and options, and suggestions to nerf this or that. "Have you tried reducing creature strength to 50% or even 25% until you get better at dealing with them?"

[Exhale]

I think temporal storms should be hard. You shouldn't conquer, but cower them. I find it hilarious that dude is 'crying' that the game is hard on the hardest difficulty, that he can't beat the storms naked with flint spears like you used to apparently before 1.20. I am a new player and temporal storms are not my favorite either, but I used to live with it. You certainly don't need to hide in a 1x1x2 hole, but you also shouldn't run around like a headless chicken farming temporal gears left and right. Spawn proof the base with molds, blocks, etc. and you ought to be safe and you can work on chiseling and forging while you wait out the storm.

[Dark Thoughts]

When is this going to be patched in? I only have 32GB of ram...

https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues/3038

[idiomcritter]

17 minutes ago, Dark Thoughts said:

When is this going to be patched in? I only have 32GB of ram...

https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues/3038

odd, the github issue pointed to looks to have been resolved.  got further testing to counter?  post up a a further bug report?

[Thorfinn]

I have not checked in 1.20.4-rcX yet, but this still existed in 1.20.3. Enough so that on my smallest system (16g), I'd reboot after every play because it would pretty reliably lose a couple g. It's easy enough to avoid it, a warm boot is enough. The problem is that there appears to be a different leak, which builds in play, which on a 16g system puts a pretty hard cap on about 3 hours. Again, fine after a reboot. And fine on a 32g system, still loses memory, but doesn't get to the point it's doing intense swapping to SSD for at least 6 hours of play.

[EDIT]

My preferred method of dealing with it on the larger systems is running on a virtual machine. Much faster than a reboot.

Edited February 11, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Dark Thoughts]

 

31 minutes ago, idiomcritter said:

odd, the github issue pointed to looks to have been resolved.  got further testing to counter?  post up a a further bug report?

Yes. In 1.20.3 the game still behaves like in the previous versions. Load a world, all mods get loaded. Return to main menu, mods don't get unloaded. Load the world again, mods get loaded twice. Rinse & repeat until your ram is full and the game or other applications eventually crash.

4 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

The problem is that there appears to be a different leak, which builds in play, which on a 16g system puts a pretty hard cap on about 3 hours. Again, fine after a reboot. And fine on a 32g system, still loses memory, but doesn't get to the point it's doing intense swapping to SSD for at least 6 hours of play.

I've had that issue in 1.19 as well, but have not had enough time to long term playtest this in 1.20 yet.

[Thorfinn]

2 minutes ago, Dark Thoughts said:

Yes. In 1.20.3 the game still behaves like in the previous versions. Load a world, all mods get loaded. Return to main menu, mods don't get unloaded. Load the world again, mods get loaded twice. Rinse & repeat until your ram is full and the game or other applications eventually crash.

Oh, is that what's causing it? I'm not using anything close to 2g of mods in my Vanilla+, but there's no reason I need anything. I don't use CarryOn for anything other than rearranging things in my homestead, for example. I could easily go back to just breaking them. And I started using HUD Clock again just for the kerfuffle about storm announcements. I will miss Sortable Storage, though. 

[Dark Thoughts]

24 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Oh, is that what's causing it? I'm not using anything close to 2g of mods in my Vanilla+, but there's no reason I need anything. I don't use CarryOn for anything other than rearranging things in my homestead, for example. I could easily go back to just breaking them. And I started using HUD Clock again just for the kerfuffle about storm announcements. I will miss Sortable Storage, though. 

The mods in my mods folder are just 131MB in total with currently 78 mods, but I don't know how exactly the game handles them when loaded. I heard the ones that add recipes are notoriously ram heavy. Still, when you close a world it should properly unload them without having to constantly restart the game.