Start in a safe place!

[Maethius]

Well, this last week I was asked by the devs to create a new world and test a few things out on my system, and I played the fastest game EVAR! I created a completely default new world, and the instant I appeared I died! Yes, I popped into existence and was pounced on by a pair of wolves from behind! "Ah, this is a lovely beach.... AAAAAAAAUGH!!!!!"

So, I was thinking, perhaps the game can create a bubble of safety of some 50 to 100 blocks, at least for a short time.

As a lore concept, depending on how exactly the Seraph were dropped into the world, maybe there could be a "starting ruin" where the player would pop in. Just a tiny thing on the surface with a few stones, perhaps. For a beginner, they could possibly opt for a start with a few essentials to get them going (but I wouldn't want to deprive any players of knapping their first knife!).

[Sam_Aritan]

No

[Maethius]

"No" is not really helpful, nor does it offer any insight as to your reasoning.

Look at the situation from a marketing point of view; I didn't care if I got killed in a world I made specifically as a test for the devs to work on an issue. If this had been my first experience with the game, I would have just dropped $35 USD on a program, installed it, loaded it up, created my first world, created my first character, and then died 5 literal seconds after play began. That is an issue that occurs infrequently but should have a solution. This is especially true in that the game penalizes you with a 50% strike against your hunger bar when you respawn by default. Worse, what if that experience were on a hardcore world? As a new customer, that would probably have a decent chance of earning a flaming review and a demand for a refund... that's not just an unfortunate mechanic, that's bad marketing.

Another potential solution would be have a default hostility timer upon player spawn so that no animals would initiate an attack against a player for 15, 30, or 60 seconds. That's enough time for the player to orient in the world and get some space from hostiles before the game really begins.

A fourth possibility could be that any creature flagged as potentially hostile doesn't spawn within that time period.

[Thorfinn]

You are something of a special case, @Maethius, as most of us have only had a few game minutes elapse as we were phasing into the world. While there is (or at least was) a minimum spawn distance that is beyond detection range, nothing stops the animals from wandering around and entering detection range.

According to patch notes and others' comments, they fixed the issue where you could be mauled while in the character generation screen. Don't know whether or not that's true, because I never define character appearance or class. I just hit escape whenever I'm ready to strike the earth. I've never been killed wile awaiting that..

[EDIT]

Don't get me wrong. I don't think the server should be ticking until you are past the chargen screen. But I think that's probably the case for what you want changed, so long as you escape out of that screen.  It may not be in terms of burning daylight, reducing what you can get done that first day..

Edited March 12, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Dra6o0n]

Maybe a beginner village or POI of fellow tribesmen? The idea is that you spawn in a 'safe' area due to the existence of your tribe living there with you as you learn the game and do tutorial stuff maybe?

And once you finish the tutorial 'something big' happens.

Edited March 13, 2025 by Dra6o0n

[LadyWYT]

20 hours ago, Dra6o0n said:

Maybe a beginner village or POI of fellow tribesmen? The idea is that you spawn in a 'safe' area due to the existence of your tribe living there with you as you learn the game and do tutorial stuff maybe?

And once you finish the tutorial 'something big' happens.

For a custom scenario, sure, but otherwise it doesn't fit the established themes and lore of Vintage Story.

[Cetasaya]

Yeah you just got really unlucky I think.  I dont really think dying quickly once or twice is that big of a deal when you can just make another world.  One, it'd be ridiculous to just rage quit the entire game like that and two, I seriously doubt the devs would refuse a refund if the customer genuinely didnt like the game and downloaded it an hour or so ago.

There's a world setting that allows up to ten days grace before any eldrich stuff spawns and nothing on the surface one shots even a nude seraph.  Closest is an adult black bear and while you'd be hurting real bad, you'd still wouldnt die. 

A starter chest, ruin, village, house, ect wouldn't be the worst idea imo (im sure there are mods that add that) but it flies in the face VS's most basic and core modus operandi which is...

"The world sucks.  The good guys lost a long time ago.  You're not special.  Eat shit."

Personally after 500 odd hours in, I can solo an entire herd of wolves and bears barehanded by just kiting them and punching them all day and night long without even taking a single hit.  Not bragging, the AI for literally everything that isnt a bowtorn or boss is just, "Chase using shortest path..  Attack when in melee range.  Chase using shortest path.  Attack when in melee range."  They dont have any superpowers or spells or equipment.  And they dont even juke, evade, stalk, ambush, kite, lure, fakeout, counter, call for allies, ect.  They're all slower than you.  They cant fly.  They can't teleport.  They cant climb.  They cant dig.  And they're deadmeat to you in the water.

So I want Vintage Story to have a far far far more brutal mode than what I can do with world generation parameters.  A mode that's balanced, hand made by the devs unsing sound game design knowledge, fair, brutal, but not grindy.  Cause yeah, I COULD make iron insanely rare but would that be fun?  Nah.  It just adds tedium.

Edited March 14, 2025 by Cetasaya

[Dilan Rona]

Ah, I remember the few times when I started a new world (when I was still new at VS), and got turned into wolf chow within the first 2 seconds of entering the world. Best I can (and suggest that you) do is make like this guy...... Dig your heals in and start bolting away the second you respawn. Assuming you didnt have the unbelievable bad luck of starting a hardcore world with 1 life, and becoming wolf chow then.

 

Good luck with VS, and welcome to the Forums.

[Maethius]

Oh, I know it was just a bit of bad luck, but the idea of creating a safe spawn, whether it is a timer, a mob spawn distance, or other feature, just seems like a simple addition to the vanilla game that wouldn't even make a dent in the overall scheme of it. It wouldn't give a measurable advantage, it wouldn't give a rule-gaming player the opportunity to fashion weapons or gather resources more than a few berries, and it wouldn't even be noticed if implemented right... It would simply be a seatbelt; a safety device that we normally live with without any thought until that once moment we needed it. As to player rage-quitting, remember that most of the new VS players are like I was; avid MC players looking for more, but seeing VS as a backwater indie project. The wrong kind of introduction can lead to someone having the impression that this IS the intended beginning of the game! For 99% of the community it wouldn't even matter... the feature only helps the 1% where it can make an impact.

Oh, and I couldn't run like a bunny... by the time I realized I was standing on the shore, I was already dead!

[LadyWYT]

I say throw the new seraphs to the wolves and be done with it. Dying immediately to hostile wildlife is somewhat rare, and when it does happen it sucks, but hey, it's easy enough to try again on a different world(or come back later in the event one is frustrated). There's nothing like the adrenaline rush of outrunning a wolf pack and living to tell the tale on a fresh new world, and one acquires those escape reflexes fairly quickly.

On the flip side, if I were to make the initial spawn point safer, the most I would do is give a small radius of protection to stop any entity other than the player from spawning, until the player leaves that radius. Then entities can spawn as normal. For multiplayer, it could simply be a toggled feature in the server settings.

11 minutes ago, Maethius said:

avid MC players looking for more, but seeing VS as a backwater indie project

Which I'm also guessing this is probably why some new players have certain complaints--they came in expecting something like the other block game, and that's not what Vintage Story is. Vintage Story doesn't pull its punches, nor should it; let Vintage Story be Vintage Story, and those who like the game will either develop their skills and season it to their individual taste via settings/mods, or decide they don't like it and move on. Both results are perfectly fine, in my opinion.

15 minutes ago, Maethius said:

The wrong kind of introduction can lead to someone having the impression that this IS the intended beginning of the game!

This is true, but I would also note that the other block game isn't immune from the issue either. You might not be lunch for the local wildlife in that case, but it has its own bad spawns(though "bad" is somewhat relative). The chances of getting one of those spawns is still fairly low, but it's possible, and a new player who happens to get one could decide that game isn't worth their time either and quit.

[Dilan Rona]

Happened to me on at least 5 worlds. As I said, I respawend, and instantly ran like a rack rabbit in the first direction I looked at when respawning. Wolfs on my tail the whole time for a good distance.

[Thorfinn]

6 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

There's nothing like the adrenaline rush of outrunning a wolf pack and living to tell the tale on a fresh new world, and one acquires those escape reflexes fairly quickly.

This part is exhilarating! Spawn way up on some hillside, and have to sprint down slope guessing where a survivable drop will be based only on what typical mapgen does. Get done with that, I have to go smoke a cigarette. Or I would if I smoked.

Nothing else in the game ever approaches that, because the rest of the game, you control where you are.

[LadyWYT]

9 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

This part is exhilarating! Spawn way up on some hillside, and have to sprint down slope guessing where a survivable drop will be based only on what typical mapgen does. Get done with that, I have to go smoke a cigarette. Or I would if I smoked.

Nothing else in the game ever approaches that, because the rest of the game, you control where you are.

I've jumped off a cliff to avoid a moose at spawn before, on apocalyptic rift activity. It's quite the experience.

The other issue that occurred to me about stopping hostile spawns near the world spawn, is that it's really only a temporary fix. If a player is temperamental enough that they're going to immediately ragequit and never try the game again because they got really unlucky with spawn, sure having no hostile creatures at world spawn might mean they play the game a bit longer. However, there's plenty of hostile wildlife and other ways to die elsewhere, which they will almost certainly find in short order, so what happens then? Not to mention that it's a lot more difficult to get geared up in Vintage Story than it is in other titles.

[stabbedbyapanda]

On 3/10/2025 at 7:51 PM, Maethius said:

Well, this last week I was asked by the devs to create a new world and test a few things out on my system, and I played the fastest game EVAR! I created a completely default new world, and the instant I appeared I died! Yes, I popped into existence and was pounced on by a pair of wolves from behind! "Ah, this is a lovely beach.... AAAAAAAAUGH!!!!!"

So, I was thinking, perhaps the game can create a bubble of safety of some 50 to 100 blocks, at least for a short time.

As a lore concept, depending on how exactly the Seraph were dropped into the world, maybe there could be a "starting ruin" where the player would pop in. Just a tiny thing on the surface with a few stones, perhaps. For a beginner, they could possibly opt for a start with a few essentials to get them going (but I wouldn't want to deprive any players of knapping their first knife!).

Great idea, I agree, i think less a bubble of safety, and more of a lore reason of ruins or something that implies some sort of lore implication would be really cool, for people that doesn't realize there is a story. Could be something simple you waking on the top of the ruins and the ladder/stairs is only one way ... aka falling down to get out. Or you are in a small tower/room and the door is one directional opening. So it's only safe till you leave/open up access to it.