Personal Gripes

[Witchfire]

Hello! I don't think I've spoken here before, but I'm a bit of a nature enthusiast and enjoy all manner of games that have to do with homesteading. Therefore, my presence here isn't all that surprising. I love this game a lot and have played it for a long while, lately with friends, and I have been running into a few consistent frustrations I'd like to see either addressed in development or explained to me in such a way that maybe a mechanic needs to be handled differently. It IS my understanding this game wants to emulate a lot of nature and biome systems to allow for that simulated homesteading (Rust beasts from an era forgotten notwithstanding). With this in mind, I present my complaints (I don't know how to more politely say this, sorry):

• Temperature ( in relation to crops ) : This is probably the one of the worst offenders that become immediately noticeable. Blueberries especially, as well as a variety of other berries, are actually extremely hardy when in extremely warm conditions. The warmth and humidity is what usually provides the required energy to flourish those berries (which are effectively the plant's energy stockpile for drought or hardship), yet placing berries in the south essentially kills their growth for most the year. Their heat tolerance is simply too low. Hell, we have variants of blueberries that only BEGIN to die at around 40C IRL. And even then, we're discussing between a 5% to 15% chance of death. (This is generous. The true values are decimal points between 7% and 12%). However, the southern areas are just too hot too quickly, which brings me to the next issue.

 

• Biome Erratics : Hyenas? Just south of the presumably European/Nordic North? I understand there's a level of gamification required given the actual limits of the map in blocks, but the transition is SHOCKING and we are very clearly skipping over multiple biomes that would be reflected, at least in limited capacity, in real life. Mediterranean conditions basically don't exist, which is particularly notable to someone who comes from an island. Humidity seems to have no effect on warmth and is not accounted for many plants. This makes the South.... underwhelming. Many praise it because of easier Hyenas vs Wolves and bears that stop being aggressive, to say nothing of longer working seasons, but... efficiency just dies. The heat is just too much in ANY non-snowy area and it's not like wolves or bears are particularly threatening later on. The benefit just seems meager and the move pointless beyond personal want (Which I did. Restoring a church in the savannah. Only to realize these problems and now am making a return trip, potentially permanently, to my northern tavern). Swamps are... "there". I just don't think 1-tile water makes enough of a swampy vibe.

 

• Food requirements good lord oh my god what this is not how it works oh god- : To be kind, I don't think I've yet to see a game of this vein where they handled hunger well. It seems to be this bugbear in the room, awkwardly staring at everyone as we have to figure out how to meaningfully put it in. So far though, I disagree that 10,000 calories per 3 hours is somehow reasonable. I'm obviously being hyperbolic, but I think there's a case to be made that you should be able to live off a few bear corpses for a few days. If I don't eat the four bears I have butchered after I finish typing this, I will die. And when I do, I will begin starving in a stark few hours. That's silly. The nutrient system, mind, is great! Freezing hunger for 30s when maxed out per- is a really ingenuous and amazing idea and I'd be devastated to see it gone. That's not the problem. The problem is how much food you need to sustain yourself for very baseline stuff. Even when I'm not sprinting, just walking around and building a slightly larger house, I'll have to make multiple (and I really wanna stress MULTIPLE) rounds back to eat. Assuming I don't have to completely sidetrack to prepare food because, for some reason, food drains so fast in my itty bitty tummy. 

 

• Animal Spawns ( Predators, especially ) : This is potentially one where I can come out with some fighting words. Finding out that animal spawns are just animal spawns and you gotta live with their location is... inadequate. Putting it really gently. I've all but cleared an entire chunk of forest, built up a small village with friends, only to still be drowning in bears and wolves. Fences are up, we're in the iron age, we have weapons and armor. They are no threat to even the weakest amongst us, meaning most if not all are just wandering pieces of bushmeat. Well, that also means they're incredibly annoying. An open forge suffers regular attacks from bears and wolves despite being tucked in to the back of the village where nothing can cross. It less presents a challenge and more presents a reason to just log off and not come back. I do thank my stars I basically have infinite bushmeat at least, because for some reason bushmeat is so awful it sustain me worse than usual food. Be it light, clearing forests, populating an area with furniture or just plain throwing rocks everywhere: Animals should not be allowed to spawn just whenever and wherever because this one anchor point says so. It's just jarring, I suppose? Which brings up my final point:

 

• Is this a homesteading game or is this an adventure game? This is not a knock against the game or another balance comment, but an earnest question. I did come to Vintage Story with the belief that it was a game with a lean into simulation of the wild where you can flourish. The omnipresent existence of monsters and lore adding to an otherwise blank slate of a game, sowing more and more interest in an otherwise normal ecosystem. It's great! I love finding ruins and lost caves filled with beasts! But- A lot of the issues I bring up do strike me as balancing choices. Not necessarily things the dev does because they're bad or ignorant, but a deliberate choice to keep the game (at least in their view) more interesting. A vision, basically, something no game can do without because, well, that's the entire point, no? The vision. So that's why I am curious: Is this game more of a game or more of a simulation? Should I expect certain fixes to be made because real life dictates these rules or are many things, including what I mentioned, going to be twisted in certain ways for gamification? I personally don't like that, and that's fine! It would just reveal this game is not for me, but I have been running into these frustration points and I feel like elucidation is best. Either that or just airing out my thoughts.

 

Thank you for reading all this to those that did! This got a little away from me and I'll confess some of it might've fallen into rants or were me trying to regain the plot, but it was issues that came to me as I wrote it, immediately hot off the heels of quitting a game because I kept getting harassed by a newly-spawned bear I couldn't be bothered to deal with while I made my new house. I fell off the roof and it attacked me to death, prompting a quit. So hi! It's unlikely I'll ever stop completely playing VS and ignoring my wants doesn't equate this game to being LITERALLY RUINED as sometimes detractor forum posts can imply, but it would severely damage my view of the game. Something I take responsibility for as I would apparently have misunderstood the sale.

Have a great day!

Edited February 10, 2025 by Witchfire

[Thorfinn]

Welcome to the forums, @Witchfire

Don't know which emoticon to use. Tempted to use the laugh because of your last paragraph, but I don't want to demean your thoughts.

At core, yes, I think the point is a game. To the extent it's a simulation, its not of earth. For the reasons you cite, plus a lot more. Between angle of repose and erosion, there is no reason for most of the dirt/sand/gravel landforms we see. Animals exist way in excess of the carrying capacity of the land. Brown bears in an earthly environment, for example, might require a territory some 60k blocks in diameter. Sounds like a lot, and in VS it is, but not in something the size of the real world.

Long way to say, yeah, I think the choices made were deliberate, and for gameplay reasons. If anything, they make the survival aspect of the game too easy. Turnips being ready to harvest in under a week? Berries in season from early spring to late fall, every week and a half? Chicks to laying hens in a few days? In order to make it even a little bit of a challenge, you have to crank the hunger rate.

[EDIT]

I'll add that there are mods that shift the balance more in the other direction. There is one that gives you basically one harvest per year. Fields of Gold, I think it's called. There was one i messed around with that gave berries seasons. Cranberries were a late summer, early fall harvest, kind of like you see in SW Wisconsin. Currants were roughly the same as our raspberries -- a lot of them, but only for a couple weeks per year. It might be headed that way, BTW. The fruit trees are definitely a step in that direction.

Edited February 10, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Lingam]

Regarding Animal Spawns..

Wouldn't it be great if the dangerous animal spawns were actual viewable items or blocks that we could choose to destroy to remove them from that area? Bear Spawns could be some unique pile of bones and gore that can be destroyed and even have special drops when destroyed (from their past victims). Or for wolf and bear spawns we could at least "claim" their territory even if it involves a small boss battle.. so when destroying a bear or wolf spawn point, one or more of them appears in few moments and we have to kill him and use a special drop to destroy the bear spawn.. Same for wolves - or if we kill X amount of them, we can use a special drop of say, 5 wolf ears to destroy the spawn.. and 5 Bear Paws to do the same for bears? At least we would have to work for it...

Not sure what to do for neutral creatures or less annoying ones.. But there should be a way for us to make them extinct in specific areas.

Regarding Hunger...

Yeah, I'd like to find a way to make it so instead of dying from going hungry within a day, we can be increasingly weakened unless we have some hearty meals to get our strength back up.. It's much better to make us weaker, cutting trees slower, shooting arrows less accurately.. running slower and mining slower while very hungry than to die so quickly. this aspect of the game could be more balanced.

[Thorfinn]

3 minutes ago, Lingam said:

Wouldn't it be great if the dangerous animal spawns were actual viewable items or blocks that we could choose to destroy to remove them from that area?

Not sure that's a direction I'd like. Spawns are currently regions/conditions, not specific blocks. And being able to fence in a spawner and have perfectly safe harvests of bears and wolves spawning therein sounds awfully cheesy.

 

6 minutes ago, Lingam said:

Yeah, I'd like to find a way to make it so instead of dying from going hungry within a day, we can be increasingly weakened unless we have some hearty meals to get our strength back up.

It doesn't work well with the way nutrition is implemented. Currently, (and IRL, for that matter) you have to wait until you are hungry before you can eat a meal. Otherwise you leave most of it in your bowl, and don't get the hunger pause benefit of the meal. There is a mod that does something like what you suggest. Hunger Overhaul, I think it's called. Wasn't my thing, but I can see it might appeal to others.

[Lingam]

Thanks Thorfin, I also was thinking that visible spawnpoints could be exploited, but I do see the problem Witchfire mentioned.. with fenced off areas getting spawns of bears etc.. Perhaps fenced areas could be considered no-spawn areas for dangerous mobs? fencing property is a fundamental way to claim property and to keep certain wild animals out, at least in the area around your home?

[Zippy Wonderdust]

I wonder if the “nuisance spawns” problem could be fixed by a simple tweak to the spawning rules for predators such that spawns are disabled in any chunks with a modified block count higher than “x”, where “x” is is some reasonable number; say, something like 32 or 64? Maybe extend that to suppressing spawns in any chunks directly adjacent to a chunk with a high enough modified block count.  This would simulate the process of “de-wilding” an area.

….it’s just a thought…

…I wonder if I could make a mod that does this…

[1Joachim1]

i see and simultaneously don't see the issue with the "spawn block" (let's call it "Nest" for the sake of it) beeing cheesable... for one side i get that you can just fence it and have a plentiful harvest, but in real life nobody is fighting bears with their fists and the ones who do they show up in the news.. my suggestion is to have the mobs be "linked" to the "nest".. my suggestion is that the nest scans the area in order to spawn a hostile, if it doesn't find any non-natural generating blocks or if it doesn't find big holes it spawns regular wolfs/bears, if, instead if finds non-natural blocks or player placed blocks and/or holes around it, it instead spawns feral versions of said mobs, those mobs only drop bones and a smaller hide than it should give but be way more hostile, to prevent cheese the mobs should walk X distance from the nest  towards a randomly selected direction (that's why i say it should be linked) which immediately does on spawn. if the mob succeeds, it gets the full drop table, else it lowers the % chance of item drop in proportion of how far the mob was from their original distance. the direction is randomly selected (may be applied to the whole pack of wolves) and the distance is random between 2 numbers (let's say from 7 to 21 blocks) so if you want to break it, you can do it, if you want to cheese you will need to have a 21x21 area fenced and trapped and you'll get less drops from that if any.

the truth is that we evolved IRL to "trap" the nest entrance of a hell lot of animals (half of the dog breds and ferrets, for example are meant to trap wild animals in a way or another )

Edited February 10, 2025 by 1Joachim1

[Zippy Wonderdust]

Regarding food requirements, yeah, now that you point it out, the meat rewards from bears and moose are pretty stingy, especially when you consider how large the animal actually is and the extra work and danger it takes to hunt them in 1.20 (since they tweaked the animal AI).  A simple mod that, say, triples the meat drops for bears and moose would help to simulate that if I kill a moose, even a skinny one, I should look forward to eating like a king for a month — which is only 9 days in this game, so we must account for that too.  My biggest concern should be how to preserve all the meat I just bagged at high personal risk!

(Side note, I use the Bushmeat Meals mod, because I refuse to believe that anyone faced with a haunch of stringy low-fat meat wouldn’t choose to boil it into a stew!)

[Dilan Rona]

Primitive survival mod will help with the meat. smoke it with the smoker.

https://mods.vintagestory.at/primitivesurvival

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Zippy Wonderdust said:

Regarding food requirements, yeah, now that you point it out, the meat rewards from bears and moose are pretty stingy, especially when you consider how large the animal actually is and the extra work and danger it takes to hunt them in 1.20 (since they tweaked the animal AI).  A simple mod that, say, triples the meat drops for bears and moose would help to simulate that if I kill a moose, even a skinny one, I should look forward to eating like a king for a month — which is only 9 days in this game, so we must account for that too.  My biggest concern should be how to preserve all the meat I just bagged at high personal risk!

(Side note, I use the Bushmeat Meals mod, because I refuse to believe that anyone faced with a haunch of stringy low-fat meat wouldn’t choose to boil it into a stew!)

I'd presume that the meat drops are for gameplay balance, rather than realism. Realistically, yeah, you should be able to eat for much longer than a day or two off of one bear or moose carcass(or other large animal). From a gameplay perspective, that means you need to hunt much less, which means that the fat and hide drops would need to be upped, presumably, in order to ensure you're getting enough hides/fat for leather/machinery without also acquiring a ton of meat that will go to waste. Not that meat doesn't already go to waste...(I enjoy hunting in the game, so a lot of my kills get turned into compost).

In any case, the other issue that increasing hunt drops poses, is that livestock becomes less valuable. Why bother raising critters if bagging a moose every once in a while satisfies all your protein needs? With the current setup we have, you could make this argument as well, however, you also have to hunt more frequently to get the same amount of meat, which in turn takes more time and effort. I wouldn't call hunting particularly hard either, even after the tweak that 1.20 brought with it, but the time investment serves as a good motivation to acquire and breed livestock, instead of relying solely on the hunt.

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, 1Joachim1 said:

my suggestion is to have the mobs be "linked" to the "nest"

That was roughly the system they used to have. If you go into creative I think they are still in the game. Search for "meta". There are 6 or 7 types, I don't remember. But I don't believe they are still used. Might have been concurrent with when mushrooms used respawn blocks. I don't know for sure, but I wouldn't swear they even use spawn blocks for locusts -- more that they gave the meta block properties to the locust nests. You can check if you like. Ctrl-F4 makes them visible.

But it's safe to say that they are probably not turning the clock back to 1.14 or whatever that was. Possibly before that.

[Zippy Wonderdust]

46 minutes ago, Dilan Rona said:

Primitive survival mod will help with the meat. smoke it with the smoker.

https://mods.vintagestory.at/primitivesurvival

That's a great point.  I'm aware of the mod but I choose not to use it for the same reason I avoid the other "mega-mods"; it's got some stuff I like and some stuff I don't want to touch with a stick.

<SoapBoxMode>

I wish certain mod authors wouldn't go all Sauron-esque, crafting the One Mod To Rule Them All.  Please, just make one mod that does one thing well. If you want to do another thing, make another mod.  That way, if I like Thing 1 but not Thing 2, I can simply neglect to install the mod for Thing 2. Primitive Survival has eleven different categories of things that it adds -- from trapping/fishing mechanics to food preservation, through docks and bridges, to fireworks and bombs!  I only want some of that, so I have to choose between loading a huge mod and then disabling everything I don't want (if I even can) or not loading it at all.  I choose not to load it.  By contrast @SaltyWater does the opposite, and I really appreciate it. Each of their mods does only one thing. I can load the ones I want and leave the rest. As an added bonus the smaller code base in each mod should be easier for them to upgrade and debug.

</SoapBoxMode>

Whew... I feel much better now. Sorry 'bout the mess.

[Dilan Rona]

you do have a point there I guess, @Zippy Wonderdust.

[1Joachim1]

24 minutes ago, Zippy Wonderdust said:

  I choose not to load it.  By contrast @SaltyWater does the opposite, and I really appreciate it. Each of their mods does only one thing. I can load the ones I want and leave the rest. As an added bonus the smaller code base in each mod should be easier for them to upgrade and debug.

i personally HATE that. i install a "mega mod" and completely ignore the parts that i don't like or don't plan to use, but having to download 5 similar thousand mods to add the specific mechanics that i want... no. it just floods the database, updating them becomes a hell of a nightmare for the user. for example "fauna of the stone age" is cluttering and monopolizing the main db page and i almost didn't notice the for golden combs mod there. just make a single mod and allow me to configure it lol, there's even an in-game config tool mod already so no excuses!

[Zippy Wonderdust]

4 minutes ago, 1Joachim1 said:

i personally HATE that. i install a "mega mod" and completely ignore the parts that i don't like or don't plan to use, but having to download 5 similar thousand mods to add the specific mechanics that i want... no. it just floods the database, updating them becomes a hell of a nightmare for the user. for example "fauna of the stone age" is cluttering and monopolizing the main db page and i almost didn't notice the for golden combs mod there. just make a single mod and allow me to configure it lol, there's even an in-game config tool mod already so no excuses!

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I can see where you're coming from. I don't agree with you, but I can respect your position.

Also, how hard could it be for the devs to add an "update mod" button to the built in mod manager, right next to the enable/disable toggle? Just click the button and it goes and grabs the latest compatible version from the moddb.    Even better, add a "check for updates" button too.  The game already has the ability to download mods when you join a server, so the new code required should be minimal...

[Thorfinn]

I'm a lean and modular type myself. There's no good reason to clutter up RAM that will never, ever be used. PS is kind of a special case -- it's more of a mod you use by itself, or maybe a couple other lean, targeted mods like StepUp and CarryOn.

3 minutes ago, Zippy Wonderdust said:

Also, how hard could it be for the devs to add an "update mod" button

Isn't there a mod that does that?

[Dilan Rona]

there is in fact. But it crashes on the 1.20 update.

https://mods.vintagestory.at/emtk

@Thorfin

Edited February 10, 2025 by Dilan Rona

[Zippy Wonderdust]

2 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Isn't there a mod that does that?

Is there?! I had no idea. Where?

Somebody had a go at making a standalone mod manager a few years back, but I think it's abandoned, and besides, it's only for Windows and I'm a Linux nerd.

[Dilan Rona]

@Zippy Wonderdust

https://mods.vintagestory.at/modsupdater

https://mods.vintagestory.at/vintagelauncher (only found it today, havent tried it yet).

EMTK (link posted above, I used that myself up and till the 1.20 version)

[Zippy Wonderdust]

16 minutes ago, Dilan Rona said:

@Zippy Wonderdust

https://mods.vintagestory.at/modsupdater

https://mods.vintagestory.at/vintagelauncher (only found it today, havent tried it yet).

EMTK (link posted above, I used that myself up and till the 1.20 version)

Mods Updater .

Oh. My. God.

There's even pointers for getting it going on NixOS...

I must have this!

Thank you so much!!!

[1Joachim1]

11 hours ago, Zippy Wonderdust said:

Mods Updater .

yes, i used to use it and works nice.. but bear in mind, it's still an annoyance. it doesn't allow you to play multiplayer with friends if you have it (even if both parts have it because as far as i remember it is required to be stored in the mods folder and the game used to be unable to resolve which mod it is due to the format and type if file) and it updates the mods automatically, yes, but of course only if the mods are updated themselves, which still it makes it so you have to wait until everyone is up to date... that includes this program itself.

[Zippy Wonderdust]

Hey folks, especially @LadyWYT,  rather than just sit and bitch about stuff I don't like, I made a thing.  It's not much, but it's a start.

[McFrugal]

Humidity does affect an area's temperature, actually.  I noticed an area with common frequency that was 3-5 degrees cooler than a nearby area with rare rainfall.  I don't know how it works overall though.

[McFrugal]

Oh and in regards to food, the main issue with realism is that prepared food is too strong.  Meals and pies give 50% more saturation per ingredient, AND they are the only way to gain the bonus that stops your hunger meter from going down for a while, so it's like they're 2x as good as eating the ingredients directly.  This of course means that bushmeat is waaaay worse than other food sources since you can't put it in a meal, and red meat isn't very good if you cook it directly.

I suspect the hunger system hasn't been touched because the devs have made farms so hugely productive and cellars so good at preserving food that there's no pressing need to fix it for gameplay reasons.  It is, effectively, just a reason to carry food in your inventory.  Protip, keep a pot full of food and a bowl in your inventory to save space.  Or if you're a fan of baking you can carry around a bunch of bread, which is very calorie-dense compared to most options.

Edited February 13, 2025 by McFrugal

[Zippy Wonderdust]

1 minute ago, McFrugal said:

Oh and in regards to food, the main issue with realism is that prepared food is too strong.  Meals and pies give 50% more saturation per ingredient, AND they are the only way to gain the bonus that stops your hunger meter from going down for a while, so it's like they're 2x as good as eating the ingredients directly.

Which kinda mirrors real life.  The 2 main reasons we cook food is to 1) kill any parasites or bacteria in the food, and 2) pre-digest the food by using heat to break it down.  In most cases you actually do get more calories from cooked food than from its raw counterpart.