Development direction poll

[chuck]

18 minutes ago, ifoz said:

The reworked NPC system is still underbaked and needs refining. The parkour gauntlet can sometimes bug out and the boss is pretty notoriously janky.
I haven't really seen them struggle to add content though.. personally, I thought that 1.20 was a massive update, considering all the blocks, mechanics and story locations it added.

What are you suggesting that the devs focus on to cut down technical debt? It seems like they are going in the direction of a dejank/bugfix update.

Technical debt is not new buggy content, technical debt is entities having 3 different positions and causing 100 bugs and rendering glitches. They will never truly get rid of any of the debt because they're afraid of breaking mods.

Edited February 28, 2025 by chuck

[Mladen Mihajlovic]

The way I see it every update should have a little of all 3 (of course new features could be small things) 

[Fexzz]

I agree with polishing first.

Not that I think the game is unpolished, far from it, however as others mentioned there is plenty of fairly new stuff that still has some quirks to work out. But it seems you guys had that planned anyways (DeJank update) so I think we're fine  

 

[Robinzon]

16 hours ago, Adnyeus said:

Watch out with these memes. I once posted some and got flagged by moderator for harassment, lol. 

Having technical debt is commonplace. I'm sure Vintage Story has little technical debt.

[DrEngine]

Please allow creating land claim in another land claim. Creating complex land protection in cities is nightmare without it.

[Doctorgeo7]

There are many small issues I have with this game, and they've been only growing as you add more content. Right now, it's vital you stop to consider all the QoL and not so little things people have wanted.

[PaleSoul]

18 hours ago, Jorrit Tyberghein said:

How so? Vintage Story already has a ton more content compared to that other game?

Good, keep it going, all gas no brakes. They've made enough to fund the game three times over if I recall? GET US MORE CONTENT. or hire that modder that makes all the animal mods, hell his deer mod was added to the official game. Hire that guy, pump out animals. we have so few animals compared to minecraft. 

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, PaleSoul said:

we have so few animals compared to minecraft. 

I'm pretty sure that the deer species alone in Vintage Story equates to about half/one-third of the other block game's animal roster.

[Knokes]

What we really need is more uses for more alloys. I find a useful material like lead, I would love to make lead anvils, more alloys and metals for contraptions.

[cosmobeau]

Keeping up to date with dev posts, I see that we've got more animals to look forward to, but we can't tame our own mounts. More importantly, people have been asking for balancing or changing the harsh domestication system. My ask is, if we can tame wild animals in real life, why can't we get the first generation or the wild caught animals to become more tame say, the more they feed from a trough, or add the ability to hand feed and pet them? Allow us to have a more expanded taming system and let us tame animals that should obviously be trainable - wolves, elk, goats and other livestock, and not limit us to waiting several generations before they're even agreeable.

I'd love to see changes & more development to the domestication system and have actual training of wild animals instead of just buying them from a trader or having to wait multiple generations for animals to become agreeable. Wild animals should be able to be domesticated over time & these features maybe should be prioritized before adding more mobs.

[-Glue-]

Definitely finish what you have in progress. Nothing should ever be kept half baked, or broken for a prolonged time. However, if new content is going to build off of an existing feature, that existing feature could potentially hold off on final optimizations, since adding onto it, or building off of it could break it again, causing you to waste time polishing it twice over.

That being said, asking a bunch of people, who likely don't understand the intricacies of game dev, is probably not the greatest idea lol. In the end, you and your team will know best what course of action to take for your own project. Though, I, and surely many others, appreciate the open development, and reaching out for feedback!

Personally, I just want the immersive first person option to be less buggy. Before, your head glitched into blocks, now it gets stuck on them and disconnects your camera from your body, which is way more disruptive. Swimming in tight spaces is also a nightmare. Plus, beams are entirely unusable with immersive camera active. If all that gets fixed, I think the game is already significantly more stable lol.
Though, I would be lying if I said I didn't want a focus on more new content to round out the games features. It does feel, quite noticeably, a bit lopsided and underdeveloped in some areas. To be expected in an early access game, of course. But still, there is some content I would kill to see get added, sooner rather than later.

[Krougal]

I say focus on all the new content, then polish content, then fix bugs.

All too often when the new content is added last I feel like it is a crappy bolted on extension.

I've lost count of how many games I love the base game but the DLC are absolute shit, especially if you come to the game as a new player.

If things are planned and integrated from the get go then it is easier to work out the kinks and they can be seamless and provide a better user experience.

[Velverosa]

I would appreciate having the map stop constantly unloading and reloading when I'm trying to look at my world map. The more you explore the worse it gets.

I also like the idea of cooking flint like how the crucible does (one batch, speed and fuel based on amount) instead of having to reheat each piece individually.

[dsptchr]

Regarding polish,

I'd love to see the class system get a bit more love - for example someone said the other day that, as a tailor, you are basically just a vending machine for others, with no real functional benefit to yourself, which is a bit harsh, but also feels very real when I look at the class stats. I haven't played as a tailor myself, so I might be off here. I just stick with commoner for now, because the debufs of the other classes really seem to be not paying off late game (e.g. hunter - I have tons of food and leather already, ranged engagements basically do not happen due to the darkness and commoner is accurate enough for killing big game).

I don't know if it's already fixed or not, but bugged Translocators are painful, especially if they are next to another one or next to your base, and also Translactors spawning with a water block are super annoying because we have no way of fixing that.

With the hostile mob spawns, unless you are deep down in a massive cave, it's really just either surface drifters which are just annoying, or you are being tag-teamed by nightmare drifters that spawn right next to you. At least for me there seems to be no gradient/variety when it comes to mobspawns - it's either annoying/boring or they'll just murder you if they get the jump on you. We can't drop bombs, we can't throw bombs, there is no ranged engagement really because you usually can't see them far enough (once you put the lights there they don't spawn. The fight is basically just kiting them with a falx or take out the biggest threats by digging above them and dropping torches so you can use your spears, then go in there and duke it out with the remaining forces. Fights against hostile mobs are basically always in claustrophobic environments.

The animal mob spawns also do not seem to vary much anymore. When I started in July 2024 I had tons of bears, wolves and other animals in my valley, now all I get is Moose that spawn on the exact same two mountain tops every single time. Nothing else spawns any longer. I loved the diversity and the danger that came from animals - it feels something changed with the spawn mechanic in the last year.

With Animal breeding you either have to keep the chunks loaded for them to automatically filter through chiseled blocks, which forces you to stick around (at least after your timer tells you they are about to conceive) and do less exploration, and therefore constantly run back and forth between places. Culling them manually is, with some animals and depending on the amount of clipping, just impossible (you won't hit that one generation 1 chicken in that furball). So with chickens you REALLY have to rely on chiseled filter-blocks, which again, forces you to keep the chunks loaded. Every game mechanic, that takes time (fair enough), happens passively (like breeding/growing), that forces you to keep the chunks loaded, stops us from exploring more - which I find is wasted opportunity.

just my 2 cents

Edited March 1, 2025 by dsptchr

[daidrian]

Definitely finishing/polishing existing content.

New content can wait until everything else is smooth.

I got the game 2 weeks ago and I'm loving it so far, keep up the good work.

[Jaaaco]

imo combat needs a rework. hitboxes are kinda janky, there's almost zero benefit to fighting enemies in temporal storms and even much less so now in 1.20 where a horde of 15 bowtorn can shred you and you can do nothing about it.

It's the weakest feature of the game for me.

 

as for other things, prospecting is kinda tedious esp the density search part. i really like the X ore Y blocks away the better prospecting mod has, so something in that direction. and making the firepit more interactive somehow, because for now its just a worse mc furnace. charcoal, leather etc. all have their own unique dare i say vintage systems, firepit is kinda just... there. Mining lots of rock for ashlar / polished rock takes sooooooo long, which is a shame cause those textures are very pretty.

 

Edited March 1, 2025 by Jaaaco

[Gylimagia]

if you are now dealing with fixing existing bugs, and not adding new content to create a full-fledged game, then in the future, when adding this same content, bugs will appear again, I think for now you need to add all the content that you think is necessary to add, repairing only critical bugs, and then fix everything together.

[Dark Thoughts]

I see a lot of issues with finding blue clay and surface ore bits which may be related to world height settings, along with a lot of other smaller issues - and bowtorns are also still a complete pain, so I think some bug fixing & polishing / balancing should have focus for at least the intermediate time right now, before diving into new stuff. I think we all like new features and content, but it should not happen at the cost of what's already there.

Edited March 1, 2025 by Dark Thoughts

[VictoriaMFD]

As much as I want fishing (please please please) I’d rather what’s here getting to a point that it can be more solid and polished! If fishing was an option I’d absolutely slam that but, lol whatever brings this game closer to the vision I’ll support! 

[CastIronFabric]

4 hours ago, Krougal said:

I say focus on all the new content, then polish content, then fix bugs.

All too often when the new content is added last I feel like it is a crappy bolted on extension.

I've lost count of how many games I love the base game but the DLC are absolute shit, especially if you come to the game as a new player.

If things are planned and integrated from the get go then it is easier to work out the kinks and they can be seamless and provide a better user experience.

I voted for new content as well. 

Personally I prefer to have most of the game changing content in place and then start a new play with a new strategy that involves all those considerations.

I think Waterwheel should be next.

Having said that, I think there are a two things that maybe should be addressed as well if not first.

1. QP Chiseling should be part of the core game.

2. The settings of 'passive' should still make the monsters attack you IF you attack them.

There is sound advice in not expanding major features though. The reason is, major new features will bring in more players. As such if the existing foundation is not sound then there is a lot of catch up while at the same time having frustrated players. With that said, I think the current build IS solid enough to start moving in the feature direction, not 100% solid but solid enough.

 

 

 

[STGrayNoct]

Personally, in order of priority for me would probably be. New content ≥ finishing/polishing existing content > bugfixing. But thats just because I love progressing along to higher tier tech stuff and building up to building more complex stuff and so on. But, I do also like the idea of probably focusing on polishing existing stuff because even though it took getting used to, but the whole knapping/clay forming thing really makes everything you make feel more important because of the effort and time it took to make it and stuff. 

Its also kinda similar to mechanial power stuff with all the gears/clutches/transmisions/rotors putting it all together is just fun... especially knowing what its building towards. Also, especially so when you have to go sometimes pretty far distances to find the right materials or spend a lot of effort to build the materials/alloys needed for whatever it is your building. It's why I love the whole cementation furnace thing, beehive quiln, and the big ship. I really love the bigger project things and putting the pieces together, especially when its something to push you farther along the tech tiers. Which, in hindsight, clay forming made me learn to love at the begining of the game. So, yeah eventually getting rid of the 3x3 grid would be ideal too, over new content. But I would take either honestly. Bugfixing/performance stuff is whatever to me, unless its hampering playing the game.

I mean when you go to the...

Spoiler

Resonance Archives and walk into the Engineering Room, nothing gets me more excited in this game then seeing possibly something that I might eventually be able to build up to, tech wise, and eventually build something like that giant generator thing, or all the other weird ruined magical-techno contraptions or gadgets that you can find in there. Love the idea with all the Jonas parts and so on, need more things that go with all that and stuff.

On another note, one of my best memories playing this game was probably stumbling upon a ruin in a cave that had a second level to, which I had to break through a broken wall to get too. Then finding a stairway to a basement like level where they housed animals and stuff. The fact that the ruin even had enough eviromental story telling to even make me think it had another level to it and organically figuring I should just try demo'ing the wall and finding the stairway down was really cool, especially so with that creepy/otherowrldly soundtrack that plays when you are in ruins. So I wish there were more ruins that were much bigger then they first seem when you stumble upon em.

Edit: Another thing that needs work is caves being empty most of the time, aside from the ocasional ruin, or locust nest. I would expect to see more stuff considering the lore implications, especially the deeper you go except there really isnt no matter how deep you do aside from harder enemies. Also I really dont understand the point of having temporal rifts opening up on the surface only for drifters and such to spawn randomly behind me or out of thin air when no temporal rifts are within my vicinity. Why not just have those things come from the temporal rifts only and also from places where there is zero light. Similiarly I wish temporal storms were something you could just see on the horizon coming like you can for other weather stuff instead of just a measage saying one is coming, I've missed those mesages so many times.

Well I've gone on long enough. Love the game! You have made me an addict.

Edited March 2, 2025 by STGrayNoct

[MikeisaGoob]

For the love of god work on finishing features already in the game there is so much broken or half baked mechanics in the game its unreal, fall damage currently doesn't matter as you can just time a jump to cancel it at any height and the timing is very generous, physics is completely broken blocks just get deleted which completely ruins immersion and functionality, and don't get me started how a game now 9 years in development still doesn't have basic footstep sfx for mobs and needs a mod to patch that in.

[Jorrit Tyberghein]

On 3/1/2025 at 2:42 AM, Knokes said:

What we really need is more uses for more alloys. I find a useful material like lead, I would love to make lead anvils, more alloys and metals for contraptions.

Lead is a soft metal. Making an anvil out of that doesn't make sense

[nano_v]

Complete the content polish it to the point that it won't affect any future updates. So 60% polishing and or finishing current systems and the 30% on bug fixing and future proofing so no big rewrites or refactoring has to be done. The 10% for whatever flexibility is a virtue. Love the game and i trust in the vision and the direction.

[Broccoli Clock]

Going to be honest, the options are just far too nebulous to give a proper answer to this, and as it's a single choice answer only I'm not going to.