Better tool maintenance.

[N EL]

So i hate the current system of tool durability. You get X amount of uses before what could have had been hours of work disintegrates. Its a mechanic that takes the "realistic means bad" approach to game design that annoys a lot of people. A good well made iron tool could last generations if taken care of. 

 

So alternative system i purpose. When the durability hits 0 instead of thanos snapping it, the tool gets a "crack" (cant think of a better word) Some debuff and the durability resets. The debuff persists until it is repaired, and if the durability drains again the tool gets another. Depending on the tier of tool, dictates how many cracks than the tier allows, THEN it can disintegrate.

 

Example: flint axe is tier 0, when it hits 0 durability it shatters completely. Stone tools, you aint reshaping a rock.

A Copper axe is tier 1, the durability runs out and instead of shattering it cracks and gets the "blunted" debuff. Now it breaks blocks slower, and the durability is full again. To remove the blunted debuff, a player needs to sharpen the axe head and now its back to tip top shape. If they do not, and keep using the axe until the durability runs out again, the axe then shatters.

Iron could have 2 debuffs before shattering,

Steel could have 3, ect.

[Dilan Rona]

 Try the mod Smithing Plus. I have that installed, and allows for repairs of tools.

[LadyWYT]

Tool breakage is more for game balancing, than it is realism. Realistically, tools shouldn't break or wear out that fast(save for stone tools), however, if tools lasted as long in-game as they do in real life then players would really only need to make tools once, and never again. The idea is for players to acquire better materials to create tools from, so that they last longer, as well as still require players to replenish their raw materials every so often.

What I would do instead, is just add a sharpening mechanic with a grindstone, and let players sacrifice a tiny bit of tool/weapon durability for more damage/faster workspeed while the item is still sharp. That way you can get a little more out of the tool/weapon, as long as you're willing to put in the time to properly maintain it. However, it will still wear out, so you'll still need to replace them and make sure you have the materials to do so.

[N EL]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

Tool breakage is more for game balancing, than it is realism. Realistically, tools shouldn't break or wear out that fast(save for stone tools), however, if tools lasted as long in-game as they do in real life then players would really only need to make tools once, and never again. The idea is for players to acquire better materials to create tools from, so that they last longer, as well as still require players to replenish their raw materials every so often.

What I would do instead, is just add a sharpening mechanic with a grindstone, and let players sacrifice a tiny bit of tool/weapon durability for more damage/faster workspeed while the item is still sharp. That way you can get a little more out of the tool/weapon, as long as you're willing to put in the time to properly maintain it. However, it will still wear out, so you'll still need to replace them and make sure you have the materials to do so.

So you have repairing cost a bit of materials, like it does in real life, instead of ripping off the worst parts of minecraft. Ive found myself nervous to use copper tools long after i have acquired a stockpile of metal, due to the fear of "wasting them." Especially since finding metal is affected by rng do much. Sometimes world spawn screws you and you just struggle finding the resources you need.

Balance is such a poor excuse. it implies this is the way it has to be and that no other idea is worth pursuing. I can think of loads of ways to balance this idea if that is really their concern. Durability is not a golden cow too precious to even consider sacrificing.

[N EL]

7 hours ago, Dilan Rona said:

 Try the mod Smithing Plus. I have that installed, and allows for repairs of tools.

It sounds like it would help but best case would be one of those mods that i wish was just base game. Problem with that is you get updates to the game and then end up having to wait for the mod to update. Already got one of those that also semi-addresses this i am waiting on updating. And then what happens if the mod developer (who keep in mind is doing this for fun and not payment) stops updating for millions of valid reasons? 

[Thorfinn]

17 minutes ago, N EL said:

Problem with that is you get updates to the game and then end up having to wait for the mod to update.

But the flip side is if it is in game, it takes the dev team that much longer to come up with a new release. The first pre of 1.20 was last July or something like that. If everything people think should be part of the base game were included, it would be years between releases.

[EDIT]

Plus, the whole point of having put so much work into making the game mod-friendly was to encourage the use of mods.

Edited February 28, 2025 by Thorfinn

[N EL]

12 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

But the flip side is if it is in game, it takes the dev team that much longer to come up with a new release. The first pre of 1.20 was last July or something like that. If everything people think should be part of the base game were included, it would be years between releases.

[EDIT]

Plus, the whole point of having put so much work into making the game mod-friendly was to encourage the use of mods.

That sounds like me like an argument against putting anything in the game. Im not against mods but there are pros and cons to having any mechanic be vanilla or a mod. If its in the game then we get mods built off of it. There is a mod i love that adds handles as an item you need to make as a part of making tools. The problem with it is i have to choose between it and any mod that adds new wood types because they wont have a recipe to make a handle for them. Some mods get compatibility but only the really popular ones like primitive survival. 

If someone wants to make this idea a mod and thats all I get I can be happy with that. I think it would be a better game overall with this mechanic though, or at least something to solve the problem. This is just my suggestion to do so.

 

[Thorfinn]

Boy, if I had a nickel for every time someone straw-manned the argument for keeping the game lean. The game needs to be only as fleshed out as is needed to tell the story. 

No, @N EL, it's not an argument against anything being implemented in the game. Rather that anything, anything that gets added to the base game has to be compiled at runtime, so adds to load time, and adds to the memory requirements, which directly impacts performance. Keeping the fluff out of the base game means it does not outgrow people's machines as quickly. You can easily expand the game in whatever direction you prefer, and only you pay the price of the performance hit. Read some of the complaints -- lag spikes and "optimization" are high among them, but, largely, that's people asking too much of their fair to middling machines. Or, to be fair, even high end machines with several dozen hefty mods.

Personally, I don't think this particular suggestion makes for a better game. I don't think it is as good as Thrifty Smithing. YMMV, which is why it's if things like this remain mods, each can select the manner he prefers to improve his game experience.

Edited February 28, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Thorfinn]

5 hours ago, N EL said:

The problem with it is i have to choose between it and any mod that adds new wood types because they wont have a recipe to make a handle for them.

For something easy like that, you could make a compatibility patch mod. If you then upload it, you can get an immediate idea of how many others prefer the kind  of game experience you like, and if it's a pretty good fraction of the player base, a good case can be made for inclusion.

Edited February 28, 2025 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

On 2/27/2025 at 5:39 PM, N EL said:

So you have repairing cost a bit of materials, like it does in real life, instead of ripping off the worst parts of minecraft.

Minecraft has a repair system that lets you sacrifice material to repair an item...and it's terrible, for many reasons(not the least of which is you can repair everything for free with Mending). I'll also note that the early versions of Minecraft didn't let you repair stuff at all; you'd eventually need to go collect more resources and craft new tools, weapons, and armor as your old equipment wore out. In contrast, you can repair your armor yourself in Vintage Story, and the metal armor won't break entirely if it hits 0 durability--it'll just cease to protect you until you repair it.

On 2/27/2025 at 5:39 PM, N EL said:

Ive found myself nervous to use copper tools long after i have acquired a stockpile of metal, due to the fear of "wasting them."

Copper tools are most useful to get you to bronze, and much like stone aren't meant to be durable because they aren't really meant to be used long term. You can, but you're setting yourself up for a harder time if you do. The better the metal used to craft the item, the longer it lasts. A steel pick has over twice the durability of an iron one, and over eight times the durability of a copper pick, in addition to being over twice as fast as its copper counterpart.

I'd also point out that collected materials that aren't being put to use is a form of waste in and of itself. It's good to have spare materials on hand, but they won't do you any good if you don't ever use them.

On 2/27/2025 at 5:39 PM, N EL said:

Especially since finding metal is affected by rng do much.

RNG is pretty consistent, in my experience. There's always plenty of material that can be used to make bronze, and at least one good iron deposit within a couple thousand blocks or so of world spawn. Borax and bauxite for steel can be trickier to find, but there's generally some within a day or two of travel from spawn.

On 2/27/2025 at 5:39 PM, N EL said:

Sometimes world spawn screws you and you just struggle finding the resources you need.

Once in a while, sure. At that point, you either roll with the punches and tackle the challenge, or scrap that world and create new ones until you find one that you like. And tagging onto the comment above--if the ore distribution isn't to your liking, you can always increase the deposit generation when you create a new world.

On 2/27/2025 at 5:39 PM, N EL said:

Balance is such a poor excuse. it implies this is the way it has to be and that no other idea is worth pursuing. I can think of loads of ways to balance this idea if that is really their concern. Durability is not a golden cow too precious to even consider sacrificing.

Is it? What I see being proposed in your original idea is drastically increasing the length of time that tools can last, via a repair system, so that one doesn't need to make new stuff very often at all. The main problem I see is that while it might make the early game a bit easier by making copper/bronze tools last a lot longer, it weakens the late game significantly by essentially creating tools that don't break and thus no reason to seek out more ore or refine more steel.

Case in point: if I understood the initial proposal, a copper pick would have basically double its current life, which means 600 hits instead of 300. That's over twice the life that the current bronze picks have. The iron proposal gets even worse, as it would increase the life of an iron pick to 3000 instead of 1000, giving a better life span than the current steel pick. And a steel pick...the default steel pick has a durability of 2500. By your initial proposal, that overall life would increase to a whopping 10,000 hits before it finally breaks! At that point, you'd only need to make one or two batches of steel--enough to get a full set of tools plus armor--because you'd never need to make steel again unless you're building a huge project, or playing for a really, really long time.

7 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Personally, I don't think this particular suggestion makes for a better game. I don't think it is as good as Thrifty Smithing. YMMV, which is why it's if things like this remain mods, each can select the manner he prefers to improve his game experience.

Agreed. It'd be fine as a mod, but would completely unbalance the overall player progression and late game gameplay loops, in my opinion.

Edited March 1, 2025 by LadyWYT
Grammar

[Dilan Rona]

The beehive kiln was originally a mod, its part of the base game now, and the mod was depreciated as a result. Just to remind you of that fact.

[N EL]

13 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Boy, if I had a nickel for every time someone straw-manned the argument for keeping the game lean. The game needs to be only as fleshed out as is needed to tell the story. 

No, @N EL, it's not an argument against anything being implemented in the game. Rather that anything, anything that gets added to the base game has to be compiled at runtime, so adds to load time, and adds to the memory requirements, which directly impacts performance. Keeping the fluff out of the base game means it does not outgrow people's machines as quickly. You can easily expand the game in whatever direction you prefer, and only you pay the price of the performance hit. Read some of the complaints -- lag spikes and "optimization" are high among them, but, largely, that's people asking too much of their fair to middling machines. Or, to be fair, even high end machines with several dozen hefty mods.

Personally, I don't think this particular suggestion makes for a better game. I don't think it is as good as Thrifty Smithing. YMMV, which is why it's if things like this remain mods, each can select the manner he prefers to improve his game experience.

So... is the strawmanning your argument because i didn't include plot relevant stuff? Again, this is an argument that could he used against any update. The only thing you have added is the stipulations that its ok for things "needed to tell the story." Considering one of the preset game modes removes the story i don't see the reasoning story content should get a pass.

Also its fine you don't like it, this is a suggestion board so i made a suggestion. You could make a suggestion too, but to me it sounds like you are suggesting nothing ever should be added which is so silly that can't actually be what you really think. This post isn't exactly doing well, I don't think its going to become a thing so you can relax.

[N EL]

6 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Minecraft has a repair system that lets you sacrifice material to repair an item...and it's terrible, for many reasons(not the least of which is you can repair everything for free with Mending). I'll also note that the early versions of Minecraft didn't let you repair stuff at all; you'd eventually need to go collect more resources and craft new tools, weapons, and armor as your old equipment wore out. In contrast, you can repair your armor yourself in Vintage Story, and the metal armor won't break entirely if it hits 0 durability--it'll just cease to protect you until you repair it.

Copper tools are most useful to get you to bronze, and much like stone aren't meant to be durable because they aren't really meant to be used long term. You can, but you're setting yourself up for a harder time if you do. The better the metal used to craft the item, the longer it lasts. A steel pick has over twice the durability of an iron one, and over eight times the durability of a copper pick, in addition to being over twice as fast as its copper counterpart.

I'd also point out that collected materials that aren't being put to use is a form of waste in and of itself. It's good to have spare materials on hand, but they won't do you any good if you don't ever use them.

RNG is pretty consistent, in my experience. There's always plenty of material that can be used to make bronze, and at least one good iron deposit within a couple thousand blocks or so of world spawn. Borax and bauxite for steel can be trickier to find, but there's generally some within a day or two of travel from spawn.

Once in a while, sure. At that point, you either roll with the punches and tackle the challenge, or scrap that world and create new ones until you find one that you like. And tagging onto the comment above--if the ore distribution isn't to your liking, you can always increase the deposit generation when you create a new world.

Is it? What I see being proposed in your original idea is drastically increasing the length of time that tools can last, via a repair system, so that one doesn't need to make new stuff very often at all. The main problem I see is that while it might make the early game a bit easier by making copper/bronze tools last a lot longer, it weakens the late game significantly by essentially creating tools that don't break and thus no reason to seek out more ore or refine more steel.

Case in point: if I understood the initial proposal, a copper pick would have basically double its current life, which means 600 hits instead of 300. That's over twice the life that the current bronze picks have. The iron proposal gets even worse, as it would increase the life of an iron pick to 3000 instead of 1000, giving a better life span than the current steel pick. And a steel pick...the default steel pick has a durability of 2500. By your initial proposal, that overall life would increase to a whopping 10,000 hits before it finally breaks! At that point, you'd only need to make one or two batches of steel--enough to get a full set of tools plus armor--because you'd never need to make steel again unless you're building a huge project, or playing for a really, really long time.

Agreed. It'd be fine as a mod, but would completely unbalance the overall player progression and late game gameplay loops, in my opinion.

Ok so the first few points you make seem to be "X did it bad so it would be bad here" which... i didn't suggest minecraft's repair system, i suggested a different one. Why does it matter that minecraft's repair system is bad? You even bring up the mending enchantment as a reason it's bad but vintage story doesn't have mending so again, i don't get why its being brought up. 

You follow it up with talking about how the armor in vintage story... currently does something similar to what i suggested but NEVER shatters and how it is a good thing.

All the other points come back to your fear it would unbalance the game. You bring up numbers when i didn't and thats where i think the issue comes from. I never said a steel pick should have 10k uses. Just when the durability bar hits 0 it doesn't shatter. I thought the implication was with a major change to the system the numbers would change too. Set it to 500, give it 4 times it could drain and you have 2k uses. Would be less than the current and still have a chance to save a pick thats be used rather than having to start from step 1.

[Thorfinn]

Sigh. No, it's that we already have a means of making tools. You hate it, I get that. You made that clear in the very first sentence. I'm not a huge fan, either, but for the opposite reason -- tools are way too durable. Yes, even copper.

I'd prefer if its durability were only a little better than enough to get you a new pick if you didn't do a lot of extra mining. For example, I'd prefer if  mining were an early game choice where you knew that every piece of limestone you mine for leatherworking  or slate you mine for roofing makes it increasingly likely that you have to resort to panning to replace your pick. You only need, what, 7 poor copper ore to replace your pick? Up to a maximum of 8 stone to reach the guaranteed surface deposit? So you need a maximum of 15 durability to break even. At the game's butchest setting, you have 10x that, on defaults, 20x.

That's true for all tools. As a result, once one gets good at the mechanics, he can often skip from stone to iron in a month, two at the outside, and then there's frankly not a lot to look forward to, progression-wise. People aren't racing through the ages just to speedrun. It's because there are so many resources in the game that unless you make the conscious decision to ignore them or let them gather dust in your warehouse, you almost have to progress that fast.

So where should the game default? More to my preferences? Yours? Everyone has a different opinion. The optimal solution, then, is whatever is easy for n00bs to pick up that is lightweight, and let each person choose his preferences from amongst the plethora of options.

Edited March 1, 2025 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

9 hours ago, N EL said:

Ok so the first few points you make seem to be "X did it bad so it would be bad here" which... i didn't suggest minecraft's repair system, i suggested a different one. Why does it matter that minecraft's repair system is bad? You even bring up the mending enchantment as a reason it's bad but vintage story doesn't have mending so again, i don't get why its being brought up. 

You didn't suggest using Minecraft's repair system, no, but you did draw a comparison to the game.

On 2/27/2025 at 5:39 PM, N EL said:

So you have repairing cost a bit of materials, like it does in real life, instead of ripping off the worst parts of minecraft.

I presume you were calling the way tools outright break in Minecraft "bad", and drawing a comparison between that and how they break in Vintage Story, with that statement right there. Hence why I made the remarks that I did. And yes, you did suggest a repair system a bit different than what's in the other block game, but I think the idea is still very weak for the reasons I have tried to explain in my previous posts.

9 hours ago, N EL said:

You follow it up with talking about how the armor in vintage story... currently does something similar to what i suggested but NEVER shatters and how it is a good thing.

Yeah, and I disagree that it's a good thing to implement that behavior for tools.

9 hours ago, N EL said:

You bring up numbers when i didn't and thats where i think the issue comes from. I never said a steel pick should have 10k uses. Just when the durability bar hits 0 it doesn't shatter.

On 2/27/2025 at 3:30 AM, N EL said:

So alternative system i purpose. When the durability hits 0 instead of thanos snapping it, the tool gets a "crack" (cant think of a better word) Some debuff and the durability resets. The debuff persists until it is repaired, and if the durability drains again the tool gets another. Depending on the tier of tool, dictates how many cracks than the tier allows, THEN it can disintegrate.

You mentioned the tools going through phases, and only breaking once they've hit 0 durability on the last phase. You didn't mention adjusting any numbers for the durability itself, so I did the math with the vanilla durability + the number of phases you suggested. By my calculations, that would give a steel pick 10,000 points worth of durability overall before it breaks entirely.

9 hours ago, N EL said:

I thought the implication was with a major change to the system the numbers would change too.

Perhaps I missed that implication. It does happen. However, you didn't list that kind of change in your post either, and I would expect some sort of change to be addressed as part of the proposed idea. Maybe not exact numbers, mind you(though those help), but at least a "The durability numbers per stage should be adjusted as part of the rework, but I don't know what they should be set to."

9 hours ago, N EL said:

Set it to 500, give it 4 times it could drain and you have 2k uses. Would be less than the current and still have a chance to save a pick thats be used rather than having to start from step 1.

And overall a tool that's worse than what we already have(less durability overall), that also requires more maintenance to keep the same general tool speed rate as before. With the system we have now, a steel pick breaks after 2500 uses, and you'll need to build a new one, which is still a type of maintenance but less hassle with a better product than what's proposed here.

Now I like the concept of sharpening your weapons every so often--that part I do like, and I think could easily fit in the game somehow. Just not with how you've proposed it.

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

I'm not a huge fan, either, but for the opposite reason -- tools are way too durable. Yes, even copper.

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

I'd prefer if its durability were only a little better than enough to get you a new pick if you didn't do a lot of extra mining. For example, I'd prefer if  mining were an early game choice where you knew that every piece of limestone you mine for leatherworking  or slate you mine for roofing makes it increasingly likely that you have to resort to panning to replace your pick. You only need, what, 7 poor copper ore to replace your pick? Up to a maximum of 8 stone to reach the guaranteed surface deposit? So you need a maximum of 15 durability to break even. At the game's nerfiest setting, you have 10x that, on defaults, 20x.

That's true for all tools. As a result, once one gets good at the mechanics, he can often skip from stone to iron in a month, two at the outside, and then there's frankly not a lot to look forward to, progression-wise. People aren't racing through the ages just to speedrun. It's because there are so many resources in the game that unless you make the conscious decision to ignore them or let them gather dust in your warehouse, you almost have to progress that fast.

I disagree--the tool stats we have now are fine. Each tier feels like a significant upgrade, and the need to craft new tools every so often adds a bit of maintenance factor without feeling too tedious. Current tools breaking too fast? Get better tools(or opt for smaller projects, if you're burning through steel tools).

Decreasing overall durability would make the game more challenging, yes, but I think it would make the building parts of gameplay a lot more tedious, which isn't ideal(building feels fine otherwise), as well as ratchet up the pressure for new players. Not that I mind increasing the difficulty for new players, however, I think the more forgiving stats we have on tools right now allows them to make a few mistakes while figuring out how to survive, instead of being punished because they didn't take the time to do math. And if they decide building things is the priority instead of progressing to bronze, they'll end up burning through all the nearby copper and learning why that might not be the most optimal choice to make in the early game.

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

So where should the game default? More to my preferences? Yours? Everyone has a different opinion. The optimal solution, then, is whatever is easy for n00bs to pick up that is lightweight, and let each person choose his preferences from amongst the plethora of options.

Pretty much.

Edited March 1, 2025 by LadyWYT
Typo

[Thorfinn]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Decreasing overall durability would make the game more challenging, yes, but I think it would make the building parts of gameplay a lot more tedious, which isn't ideal(building feels fine otherwise)

Maybe. Or perhaps it just shifts the building phase to a little later in the game when you have the durability and mining speed of iron. If you want to build your obsidian tower with copper tools, you still can, but maybe you should make sure you have enough materials for your next pick before you start relieving the obsidian. Once you have iron, you can easily build things more in line with what iron tools can make.

If you are in Copper Age, maybe construct buildings of materials appropriate for the Copper Age?

Edited March 1, 2025 by Thorfinn