Do we really need a combat overhaul? What are your opinions on it?

[LadyWYT]

6 hours ago, rereretrograde said:

Dismemberment would be an interesting idea and add to the horror of the game.

The devs have already said they're not keen on adding gore to the game, since some members of the team have reservations about depicting that kind of thing.

As for myself, I don't like the idea, because not everything has to a gorefest that's thrown in your face. I don't like blatant horror games, and I don't like a lot of gore, and I know I'm not the only player that has these preferences either. Vintage Story itself also is not a horror game; it's a realistic survival game with some elements of eldritch horror in the background. The game, although niche, also tries to appeal to a somewhat general audience, and gore/horror tends to be a very specific demographic.

Likewise, splattering blood and gore everything is only good for an immediate shock factor and doesn't tend to stay "scary" because it desensitizes the player rather quickly. However, if the horror elements stay in the background and the details are left up to the player's imagination, then the scenarios are often much more frightening, and remain frightening for a longer period of time, since the imagination is quite often a more terrifying place than reality.

[Zaph42nd]

Regarding combat, one of the biggest gripes I have always had was the "weight" behind attacks, feels like animation timing and damage could be increased or adjusted to make hits feel more significant, it'd also help if enemies equally hit harder (but slower) to incentivize balancing your attack timings and blocking (you'd also need to learn how enemies attack and respond accordingly). If combat is more "weighty", I suspect it'll be a lot more satisfying to fight albeit I've always thought fighting is not the primary-solution to most of the encounters you'd have in VS (actually often times getting some distance works just as well, although some enemies and animals still chase endlessly which I feel like somewhat hurts that side of combat) so would also need some reworks to AI behaviors (e.g. losing pursuit of a fleeing player, set territorial behaviors, etc...)

[LadyWYT]

2 minutes ago, Zaph42nd said:

one of the biggest gripes I have always had was the "weight" behind attacks, feels like animation timing and damage could be increased or adjusted to make hits feel more significant

Not necessarily. The hitboxes and hit detection absolutely need work, as that's one of the main reasons combat feels so clunky right now. Damage itself doesn't need to be increased if hits can be landed more reliably; increasing player damage also makes enemies much less threatening, while increasing enemy damage can frustrate players more easily since there's not as much room for error.

As for adding more "weight" to attacks, that tends to be where sound design factors in. Currently, there's only one basic hit sound, and it doesn't really feel impactful. Shields used to have a similar problem, but were recently changed so that the blocking sound was more noticeable and affected by the shield's material(so metal shields produce a very satisfying metallic THUD when they block a hit). Adding a bit of extra detail to the sound of swinging a weapon or perhaps some metallic ring on impact(when appropriate) would help successful hits feel a lot more satisfying.

10 minutes ago, Zaph42nd said:

it'd also help if enemies equally hit harder (but slower) to incentivize balancing your attack timings and blocking (you'd also need to learn how enemies attack and respond accordingly)

This might help with some enemies, but I don't think every enemy needs to be that way. Not every enemy needs to hit hard or telegraph their attacks to the extent they can be easily dodged. Some enemies are going to hurt to fight, and the player will need to plan for that.

An active hit/block system can be very satisfying to play in many ways, but it can also prove to be frustrating if your reaction time isn't so good. If "character skill" is a factor it can also prove to be an unsatisfying system since it generally can't express a character becoming better at that skill over time. Compare Skyrim to Morrowind as an example. Skyrim's combat can be satisfying because the hit/block system is rather responsive and relies on the player's own skill rather than the character's stats, but as a result characters don't really feel like they're learning anything over time. In contrast, Morrowind can be frustrating at first since low character stats lead to a lot of misses and lower damage, but the system itself can be more satisfying in the long-term since you can actually feel the character becoming better at their job over time.

18 minutes ago, Zaph42nd said:

I've always thought fighting is not the primary-solution to most of the encounters you'd have in VS

It's good to have non-combat solutions for some encounters, but one drawback of the videogame medium is that solutions often have to be simplified since there's a limit to how many factors can be accounted for. The solutions also need to be at least somewhat engaging, and combat is typically the easiest way to accomplish that.

Non-combat solutions, I think, are better left to the realm of NPC interactions, as some sort of player reputation mechanic. The player's class and choice of dialogue/actions can influence how friendly NPCs will be, how easily they could be intimidated, and how cooperative they're inclined to be in general.

[Zaph42nd]

4 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Not necessarily. The hitboxes and hit detection absolutely need work, as that's one of the main reasons combat feels so clunky right now. Damage itself doesn't need to be increased if hits can be landed more reliably; increasing player damage also makes enemies much less threatening, while increasing enemy damage can frustrate players more easily since there's not as much room for error.

Fair far as hit-boxes and detection goes, I've noticed that too and it's especially an issue with swarming-type enemies (locusts), feels like something where sweeping-type hits may be better although I'm not sure how that'd get implemented. Damage increases more so would be supplemental, although I'm more favorable to damage-increases/scaling with tool-grade (metal age) and quality (tempering, durability, etc..), therefore incentivizing blacksmithing, upgrading your weapons, and quenching/tempering (which itself feels like it doesn't really contribute much to combat) since the current system doesn't have substantial jump ups (1-2 difference doesn't feel like it incentivizes making weapons in every metal-age).

6 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

As for adding more "weight" to attacks, that tends to be where sound design factors in. Currently, there's only one basic hit sound, and it doesn't really feel impactful. Shields used to have a similar problem, but were recently changed so that the blocking sound was more noticeable and affected by the shield's material(so metal shields produce a very satisfying metallic THUD when they block a hit). Adding a bit of extra detail to the sound of swinging a weapon or perhaps some metallic ring on impact(when appropriate) would help successful hits feel a lot more satisfying.

Definitely agree on sound design as a major needed addition, I think adding in an extra sound cue either from enemy response to being hit or an actual swinging sound would go miles to improve combat feel, while enemies already react somewhat to being hit (slight recoil and muted hurt-sounds) it's not really much.

16 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

An active hit/block system can be very satisfying to play in many ways, but it can also prove to be frustrating if your reaction time isn't so good. If "character skill" is a factor it can also prove to be an unsatisfying system since it generally can't express a character becoming better at that skill over time. Compare Skyrim to Morrowind as an example. Skyrim's combat can be satisfying because the hit/block system is rather responsive and relies on the player's own skill rather than the character's stats, but as a result characters don't really feel like they're learning anything over time. In contrast, Morrowind can be frustrating at first since low character stats lead to a lot of misses and lower damage, but the system itself can be more satisfying in the long-term since you can actually feel the character becoming better at their job over time.

Good points, I think active hit/block could be interesting but maybe not really suit for Vintage Story given that ranged weaponry would suffer (as in, you'd be missing out on a game system, kind of an issue with Skyrim too since "stealth-archer" is quite broken and not fun). Morrowind-style progression would be interesting but maybe a bit clunky since it'd require adding in more RPG-like systems that could feel a little out of place in the sandbox setting.... Conflicted on it but do think hit-box changes are a good start as is increasing weapon damages. 

[QueenGeeBee]

I just want combat to have the same complexity as farming or smithing. People like different aspects of the game sure, but I just want a system with depth and complexity that rewards engaging with it. Im not saying chivalry attack directions or dodge rolling, but i dont wanna sprint backwards while spam clicking on enemies.

[rereretrograde]

19 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The devs have already said they're not keen on adding gore to the game, since some members of the team have reservations about depicting that kind of thing.

As for myself, I don't like the idea, because not everything has to a gorefest that's thrown in your face. I don't like blatant horror games, and I don't like a lot of gore, and I know I'm not the only player that has these preferences either. Vintage Story itself also is not a horror game; it's a realistic survival game with some elements of eldritch horror in the background. The game, although niche, also tries to appeal to a somewhat general audience, and gore/horror tends to be a very specific demographic.

Likewise, splattering blood and gore everything is only good for an immediate shock factor and doesn't tend to stay "scary" because it desensitizes the player rather quickly. However, if the horror elements stay in the background and the details are left up to the player's imagination, then the scenarios are often much more frightening, and remain frightening for a longer period of time, since the imagination is quite often a more terrifying place than reality.

that is fair enough, the eeriness of the game is definitely quite subtle. I am mostly just spitballing when it comes to what could possibly be in store for us when it comes to a combat overhaul, and I think it would have added to the dripping atmosphere this game has.

[Desync_82]

Melee combat needs work since it's just hacking away with better materials and especially the shield that is too large and is more a liability than a defence.

But also ranged combat or the act of hunting with ranged should be more worthwhile.

A simple bow with anything better than a crude arrow should effectively one shot smaller game. Because most of the time animals eat the damage and scoot of in the bushes almost never to be found again. Perhaps the hunter class get an added tracking effect to know where there are animals or where the shot animal is hiding at?

Because how the game is now, hunting results in that the animal has endless stamina to outrun a hunter, I literally starved of hunger once trying to keep up with a boar, so we have to dig killing pits and lure them in, chase them in a corner and pepper them with arrows, or I have to burn off a whole area so the new animals spawn without any bush to hide in and harvest the burned victims.

And for the rust world enemies.. well just have a good enough amount of ammo because they'll keep coming and the surface ones drop nothing exciting, best to avoid it completely.

In short I'd go for:
make hunting animals a bit more realistic and fulfilling and perhaps give namesake class an edge for it.
make different ranged weapons also feel a bit more specialised:

- slings get a stun effect (getting hit by a good sized rock really disorients you at the very least): better sling: more accuracy and range, harder rock: longer stun.
- bows get a bleed or have an area specific: headshot twice the damage.
- spears get a slow (try running around with a metre long stick in your body)

In general the combat now works but it isn't the most exciting part of the game and any skill doing it feels not rewarding enough. The only useable skill for now is just not getting hit or you'll burn satiety and time/bandages to recover but it's very plain in the act itself. That's why people resort to efficient killing pits or closing off mining halls to avoid it completely.



 

Edited July 17 by Desync_82

[Rezerkity]

I'm not as interested in a combat rework as much as I am interested in the rework of mechanics surrounding it.
I feel Vintage Story fails to inform the player about certain mechanics sufficiently, or fails to deliver these mechanics in ways that are fun and rewarding to engage with, as opposed to simply being friction points that detract from gameplay with little potential gain.

 

Temporal Storms are unrewarding and frustrating as I've had multiple experiences with a strong enemy spawning right next to me, and oneshotting me in the second temporal storm of the year, and even if I struggle to kill things, I generally don't get more than perhaps a rusty gear, and a few bits of flax string. They interrupt whatever my plans were, punish me for straying from my base and going on excursions, and are unrewarding for the risk they carry.

Temporal Storms just need a rework in general. I can live with having to trek back home when I'm warned of one incoming, you're given plenty of warning for that. But enemies spawning on top of me sucks, and even with the armour I can get on year one, it's not going to help when a Corrupt Drifter spawns in my house on top of me, and going outside means I face about 5 other enemies at once in the dark. Even surviving all this isn't particularly worthwhile due to the best case of loot being a couple of gears, and possibly a temporal gear if you're quite lucky (although it serves little purpose early on anyway).

 

Sanity can designate a surface area as unstable very arbitrarily, which functions as a "hey this area is cursed and if you build here you'll lose sanity over time" but has no purpose - this area isn't any more rewarding than others due to the risk, it's just a random area selected to be uninhabitable.

Sanity shouldn't make random patches of low sanity areas, it adds absolutely nothing to the gameplay, and is just an invisible punishment towards newer players learning the mechanics, and players who get bad luck with really pretty areas they want to settle in. Beyond that sanity is overall a feature without much content at all anyway.

 

Damage tiers are explained as "low tier armour is less effective against high tier damage", and there's no mention ingame as far as I know of the fact that enemies can hit different part of your hitboxes. So if you have full Steel Plate armour on your chest and legs, a bear hitting you in the head will deal full damage and possibly kill you from near full health. This is such an important mechanic that isn't explained, and it makes Improvised Armour potentially not protect a new player at all, leaving them confused as to why their armour didn't even take damage when they got attacked.

I feel that the guidebook could do a better job of explaining armour only protecting one part of you, whereas in virtually all other games, including ones in the same genre, armour tends to be a general 'take less damage' instead of a 'take less damage ONLY if hit here'. I know it makes sense if you think with real world logic, but this is a videogame.

[Nekkowe]

On 7/20/2026 at 10:00 PM, Rezerkity said:

I'm not as interested in a combat rework as much as I am interested in the rework of mechanics surrounding it.
I feel Vintage Story fails to inform the player about certain mechanics sufficiently, or fails to deliver these mechanics in ways that are fun and rewarding to engage with, as opposed to simply being friction points that detract from gameplay with little potential gain.

[...]

Yeah, I feel like pretty much everything touching combat is in some way underbaked at best and frustrating in a boring way at worst...

• Temporal storms are unbearable; the spawn system makes even your home unsafe, incentivizing you to just dig a 2x1 hole to AFK in for several minutes (until you turn them off)
• Temporal rifts and regional stability broadly don't really add anything (until you turn them off)
• Death returns you to world spawn, for some ungodly reason (until you install a bed spawn mod)
• Items despawn in minutes (until you install a corpse mod, or get uncomfortably comfortable with /tpwp You Died Here) 
• Not a single animal or hostile construct enemy so much as makes footstep sounds
• Hunting is barely worth the time, for how impossible it is to actually track a hurt animal (until you install a blood trail and/or footprint mod). They can continue to outrun you forever, with no limits to their stamina and no way to really track them if you lose sight of them for even a moment
• Attacking things in melee feels both clunky and impactless at the same time
• Places like the Archive require light but don't let you build or place torches, negating any use for shields, so the odd sawblade locust just kinda kills you in two hits regardless of armor
• I have not yet made it all the way through the Archives, but I've heard of the boss fight down there, and not a single thing I've heard about it has been positive
• Non-animal enemies are straight up almost never worth fighting, not least since they almost never so much as drop anything

I was really surprised how much emphasis the game places on combat, considering how terrible of a state it's currently in. And I was surprised about how terrible of a state it's in, considering how well everything else works... except gears and stuff, I guess.

Even if you turn off temporal rifts and storms and the like, if you want to engage with the story content, you have to engage with the combat. And the combat is not in a good state at all.

Are there any announced plans of changing any of that anytime soon...?

Edited yesterday at 03:12 PM by Nekkowe

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

Places like the Archive require light but don't let you build or place torches, negating any use for shields

Welcome to the forums!

This isn't quite true. While you can't place torches down in the Archive in order to light them or place lit torches just anywhere, you can place lit torches in the empty torch holders in the Archive, and the library has chandeliers and candles you can place in them. Likewise, it's also not necessary to have a light equipped in your off-hand at all times. Once you fire up the main machinery, most of the Archive will be lit up enough to see fairly well, with only a couple of exceptions.

And of course, if the player is sufficiently advanced, the night vision mask is an option, though it is a risk since it currently provides no armor.

2 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

I have not yet made it all the way through the Archives, but I've heard of the boss fight down there, and not a single thing I've heard about it has been positive

This really depends on who you ask. I find it enjoyable.

 

2 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

Non-animal enemies are straight up almost never worth fighting, not least since they almost never so much as drop anything

This depends on the enemy and enemy tier, as well as what killed said enemy. If an enemy dies to something that isn't a player, the drops are reduced. If the enemy is a low tier, they don't have much of value since they are an easier enemy to fight. Tough enemies like corrupt and nightmare level monsters almost always drop something, with the special "miniboss" enemies like bells, sawblade locusts, deepsplit/bellhead/stilt shivers, and double-headed drifters all are guaranteed to drop a handful of flax fibers, rusty gears, and at least one temporal gear, with the potential for an additional gear or a Jonas part.

In the earlier game, hunting the special monsters in temporal storms can be quite lucrative, since the storms aren't as strong and a handful of rusty gears can let you purchase several resources from traders, that can in turn hasten progression since you won't need to find those resources yourself.

2 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

Death returns you to world spawn, for some ungodly reason (until you install a bed spawn mod)

The ability to set one's spawn point is a powerful ability, which is why Vintage Story treats it much differently than Minecraft. Setting a spawn point requires a temporal gear, and by default the player is limited to 20 respawns(this can be adjusted in world settings) at that spot before they'll need to use another gear or be sent back to world spawn. This pushes the player to be more careful with their actions and think more carefully about how they use this power, rather than encouraging them to play recklessly since a bed will just fix everything.

The late game opens up more convenience regarding "death runs" though--building the terminus teleporter allows the player to teleport to their last point of death, for the cost of one temporal gear.

Also worth noting that "returns to world spawn" is highly subjective, since the spawn radius from the world spawn can be increased or decreased. On harder difficulties like Wilderness Survival, the radius is increased to 5000 blocks instead of the standard 50 blocks.

2 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

Not a single animal or hostile construct enemy so much as makes footstep sounds

This is no longer true. Wolves and bears both have footsteps now. They are, however, quite subtle, so if you aren't paying attention they're quite easy to miss.

 

2 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

• Temporal storms are unbearable; the spawn system makes even your home unsafe, incentivizing you to just dig a 2x1 hole to AFK in for several minutes (until you turn them off)
• Temporal rifts and regional stability broadly don't really add anything (until you turn them off)

Again, it depends on who you ask. I enjoy the mechanics, and have found that while they're generally easy to handle, they can also very much sneak up on you if you aren't paying attention. It's all fun and games until the happy hunting grounds are in an unstable area, and you're intending to camp overnight...

Additionally, chunk stability and rift weather affects monster and rift spawns. Unstable surface areas are more likely to spawn rifts, and unstable areas underground are more likely to have monsters. Likewise, lower rift activity means fewer monsters underground, while higher rift activity means more. It's a good idea to plan underground activities for days of low rift activity, as well as a good idea to keep an eye on the activity while you're underground. 

2 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

Items despawn in minutes (until you install a corpse mod, or get uncomfortably comfortable with /tpwp You Died Here) 

This can be changed in the world settings.

 

2 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

Are there any announced plans of changing any of that anytime soon...?

1.23 is supposed to contain some sort of armor rework. A status effect system is also planned, and will almost certainly change combat(and many other things) quite drastically, but it's unknown when such a system will be implemented. Most everything else is speculation, to my knowledge.

[Nekkowe]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

1.23 is supposed to contain some sort of armor rework. A status effect system is also planned, and will almost certainly change combat(and many other things) quite drastically, but it's unknown when such a system will be implemented. Most everything else is speculation, to my knowledge.

Ah, that's good to hear!

Thank you for your response! I don't agree with most of it, but that's all largely down to differences in personal preference.

I had no idea the archives light up on their own later down the line, though - I placed torches in every torch holder I found, which was just the very top and then the looong ladder shaft before the actual no-build area, and from that point on forward I never saw one again... at some point after exploring the first and half of the second level, making a bunch of trips back and forth to dump out all the tattered clothing and butterfly badges and other junk I found in there, I got so tired of dealing with the endless enemy spawns in the commons that I just bounced off it entirely for the time being. Sounds like 1.23 might be a good time to give it another try.

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

Setting a spawn point requires a temporal gear, and by default the player is limited to 20 respawns(this can be adjusted in world settings) at that spot before they'll need to use another gear or be sent back to world spawn. This pushes the player to be more careful with their actions and think more carefully about how they use this power, rather than encouraging them to play recklessly since a bed will just fix everything.

Effectively, I think it just pushes the player to build their base at the world spawn, a place that may or may not be even remotely suitable for it. I don't think it's good or interesting for it to arbitrarily be treated as some kind of super special place. Like temporal storms, it's another case where the most straightforward way to deal with the system is way more boring than just disabling the mechanic entirely.

Would you say that none of the things I pointed out in my earlier post need an overhaul?

Edited yesterday at 07:35 PM by Nekkowe

[Banch]

I think subsystem damage (an injury to a specific limb, etc) would go well with the plans for better hit-detection, as long as the effects on the player can be healed over time. This just isn't the kind of game for permanent debuffs, even making you temporarily weaker/slower with injuries would be a really unpopular decision but I think I would play with it personally. As for hunting, animals really should slow down when they're injured. We are famously persistence hunters, we're supposed to be able to run them down. Monsters can be more relentless since they don't get tired.

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Unstable surface areas are more likely to spawn rifts, and unstable areas underground are more likely to have monsters.

Wait, is this part true? I thought this was just one of those mod features people think are vanilla.

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, Banch said:

Wait, is this part true? I thought this was just one of those mod features people think are vanilla.

As far as I'm aware, it's true. It certainly tracks with my experience.

 

5 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

Would you say that none of the things I pointed out in my earlier post need an overhaul?

I think you said it best here:

5 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

I don't agree with most of it, but that's all largely down to differences in personal preference.

For the most part, I don't think combat or temporal storms need the drastic overhaul that some players claim they do. And for your post specifically, I don't agree with much of any of it since the kind of design you seem to favor is not the kind of design that Vintage Story seems to be aiming for.

 

5 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

Effectively, I think it just pushes the player to build their base at the world spawn, a place that may or may not be even remotely suitable for it. I don't think it's good or interesting for it to arbitrarily be treated as some kind of super special place. Like temporal storms, it's another case where the most straightforward way to deal with the system is way more boring than just disabling the mechanic entirely.

This is a good example of what I'm talking about. Tyron himself is on record, I do believe, about the ability to set respawn points to be a very powerful one, and the reason he designed VS's system like he did(interview with Oscillascape, I think it was). Some players hate it--generally the more casual players--and that much is fair, but I don't think that's a reason to change the entire system to one that's super lenient. The game itself already provides the player options to deal with it, since the gear respawns can be set to infinite times and "keep inventory" can be toggled on if the player is worried about losing items. It's also worth noting that temporal gears can be used to set spawns inside of story locations, where a placeable item like a bed just will not do.

That doesn't mean there can't be a solution for the more casual players though. The best solution, in my opinion, is simply to let the player have the option to spawn with a temporal gear in their inventory. That way they get one free spawn reset so they can set their spawn wherever they wish to build their base, as soon as they find a good location.

4 hours ago, Banch said:

I think subsystem damage (an injury to a specific limb, etc) would go well with the plans for better hit-detection, as long as the effects on the player can be healed over time. This just isn't the kind of game for permanent debuffs, even making you temporarily weaker/slower with injuries would be a really unpopular decision but I think I would play with it personally.

Agreed, though I think the popularity of such a system will depend heavily on how easy it is to get injured versus how easy it is to deal with the injuries received. I've had pretty good luck with the concept in Skyrim, but it can be pretty brutal if you get careless or really unlucky.

[dingly doog]

totally yeah, the combat loop we have now of hitting, stepping back, stepping forward, hitting and repeat is prety boring. an armor overhaul is needed too, as you upgrade armor you just get slower and need to eat more food.

[LadyWYT]

6 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

I got so tired of dealing with the endless enemy spawns in the commons that I just bounced off it entirely for the time being.

For what it's worth, enemy spawns in story locations are static, not unlimited, with very few exceptions. The enemies you're probably referring to here are the locusts, and yes, there are a lot of them, as that is how locusts operate--in swarms. Typically the way you deal with them is to destroy the nearby cage spawners to get them to quit spawning, but since you can't destroy things in story locations, there's just a set number of them that you have to kill. Once you kill them all, they should remain dead unless you reset the location. Do note though that the respawn rule does not apply to the Archive boss, since the boss will respawn after a week has passed in the game(but won't drop more loot).

[Teh Pizza Lady]

10 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

Yeah, I feel like pretty much everything touching combat is in some way underbaked at best and frustrating in a boring way at worst...

• Temporal storms are unbearable; the spawn system makes even your home unsafe, incentivizing you to just dig a 2x1 hole to AFK in for several minutes (until you turn them off)
• Temporal rifts and regional stability broadly don't really add anything (until you turn them off)
• Death returns you to world spawn, for some ungodly reason (until you install a bed spawn mod)
• Items despawn in minutes (until you install a corpse mod, or get uncomfortably comfortable with /tpwp You Died Here) 
• Not a single animal or hostile construct enemy so much as makes footstep sounds
• Hunting is barely worth the time, for how impossible it is to actually track a hurt animal (until you install a blood trail and/or footprint mod). They can continue to outrun you forever, with no limits to their stamina and no way to really track them if you lose sight of them for even a moment
• Attacking things in melee feels both clunky and impactless at the same time
• Places like the Archive require light but don't let you build or place torches, negating any use for shields, so the odd sawblade locust just kinda kills you in two hits regardless of armor
• I have not yet made it all the way through the Archives, but I've heard of the boss fight down there, and not a single thing I've heard about it has been positive
• Non-animal enemies are straight up almost never worth fighting, not least since they almost never so much as drop anything

I was really surprised how much emphasis the game places on combat, considering how terrible of a state it's currently in. And I was surprised about how terrible of a state it's in, considering how well everything else works... except gears and stuff, I guess.

Even if you turn off temporal rifts and storms and the like, if you want to engage with the story content, you have to engage with the combat. And the combat is not in a good state at all.

Are there any announced plans of changing any of that anytime soon...?

Why should it change, though? I get that you don't like it, but that's a different question from whether it should be different. What's actually not working about it as it fits into the game right now, and if something is genuinely broken, how would you go about fixing it?

A lot of this reads less like a combat complaint and more like "if I turn off the survival mechanics, the game gets less interesting," which... yeah, that's kind of the point of them. Storms, rifts, world-spawn on death, item despawn: these are deliberate design choices, not oversights, and they're meant to make the world genuinely dangerous until you settle into how the game is intended to be played. You're welcome to disagree with that philosophy, but the things that make this game distinct from other block games aren't really an argument for changing it, they're just a description of what makes it its own thing.

To be clear, I think you've highlighted some real issues with the game, and I'm not just trying to wave those away. But they're mixed in with enough opinionated whinging that it's genuinely hard to tell which complaints are pointing at something broken and which are just "I haven't adjusted to how this is meant to work yet."

Things like "melee feels clunky," "non-animal enemies aren't worth fighting," or "the boss fight is bad" fall into that second category as written, since they're opinions phrased as conclusions rather than descriptions. What does clunky mean here, specifically? Hitboxes? Timing windows? Animation cancels? Without that detail there isn't much anyone can actually do with the feedback.

If you want this to land as more than "make it Minecraft with better graphics," it'd help to lead with the concrete, fixable problems, propose what you'd want instead, and set the rest aside, or at least separate it clearly from "this is different than what I'm used to and I don't like it."

[MKMoose]

15 hours ago, Banch said:

We are famously persistence hunters, we're supposed to be able to run them down.

I see people bringing up this idea somewhat regularly, and yet there is so little meaningful evidence for a claim this strong.

• Direct archaeological evidence for persistence hunting is extremely scarce, because there is no easy way to determine that an animal was first exhausted before it was killed.
• Even in areas where we have evidence of persistence hunting, numerous other hunting strategies have been in use as well, almost always with none being clearly dominant.
• Even in areas where persistence hunting is common, it is often used primarily on a specific category of animal species which are worthwhile to hunt in this way, so it is not a universal strategy.
• Even in groups which employed persistence hunting in a significant capacity, projectile weapons would have appeared early and would have been used to weaken the prey before attempting to exhaust it, somewhat similar to the standard hunting strategy of wolves and to stalking. It takes no genius to figure out that a wounded animal is easier to pursue, and energy efficiency is a huge factor in survival-focused decisionmaking.
• The primary advantage that humans have is thermoregulation through sweating, not exactly endurance, which means that they can primarily outcompete animals in hot climates but not universally in all climates, which then aligns with where the majority of documented examples of persistence hunting come from. Other ecological factors like clear visibility, open terrain or reliable snow cover that allow persistence hunting to be significantly viable also further point towards it not being the primary hunting strategy in many contexts.
• Endurance has plentiful benefits outside of persistence hunting. It can significantly benefit even a forager who has never killed an animal in their life. And we do know that many hunter-gatherers have relied overwhelmingly more on the latter part of the term.

It is clear that persistence hunting is a real and meaningful strategy, but I don't personally see any real reason to go as far as to say that "humans are famously persistence hunters". It's a popular idea, but not one that is particularly well supported.

 

While this is not exactly part of your suggestion so I'm addressing it more broadly, I want to also note that I kind of hate the idea of giving animals stamina. Because I don't get the point of adding the boring version of hunting - if there is the possibility to implementing mechanics allowing the player to stalk, injure, track and finish off the animal, then I don't understand why it would be seen as a good idea to pick out the most boring step from the whole process and allow to just follow the animal until it starts keeling over from exhaustion.

The one feature that I think is sufficient to make hunting better is to implement reasonably realistic bleeding - weakened animals could have dulled threat perception and should probably be a bit slower, but I don't see any need for standard stamina mechanics.

 

15 hours ago, Banch said:

18 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Unstable surface areas are more likely to spawn rifts, and unstable areas underground are more likely to have monsters.

Wait, is this part true? I thought this was just one of those mod features people think are vanilla.

This is absolutely not true as far as I know. It's part of the reason why I've been harping about temporal mechanics being a disconnected, unfinished mess. The only factor that has any impact is the player's own stability, which will naturally tend to be lower in unstable areas and change how monsters spawn (though it doesn't actually increase spawns directly, it actually effectively reduces them in many contexts), but that's a second-order interaction. I can point you to the relevant code if interested.

 

11 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

This is a good example of what I'm talking about. Tyron himself is on record, I do believe, about the ability to set respawn points to be a very powerful one, and the reason he designed VS's system like he did(interview with Oscillascape, I think it was). Some players hate it--generally the more casual players--and that much is fair, but I don't think that's a reason to change the entire system to one that's super lenient. The game itself already provides the player options to deal with it, since the gear respawns can be set to infinite times and "keep inventory" can be toggled on if the player is worried about losing items. It's also worth noting that temporal gears can be used to set spawns inside of story locations, where a placeable item like a bed just will not do.

That doesn't mean there can't be a solution for the more casual players though. The best solution, in my opinion, is simply to let the player have the option to spawn with a temporal gear in their inventory. That way they get one free spawn reset so they can set their spawn wherever they wish to build their base, as soon as they find a good location.

The ability to set a respawn point can be powerful, sure, but there is no world where that justifies any and all related design decisions. And regardless of all that, you've not addressed the comment that the game somewhat arbitrarily treats the spawn point as a particularly special location, and players are significantly encouraged to settle near the spawn point as a result of the easily-frustrating respawn mechanics combined with a couple other factors.

I don't wanna copy-paste a comment from another topic where I've mentioned around ten possible ideas for improving respawning and beds, but I do want to specifically mention one thing regarding giving the player a temporal gear on spawn - when you set up the expectation that the player can run off and set their spawn wherever they want with a free temporal gear, then it's gonna be even more frustrating if the player happens to die before they decide on a suitable location.

As a side note, a similar reason contributes to rifts being complained about so much - when you set up the expectation that the player can spend a night in calm rift activity with no monsters, then it only becomes more frustrating when that expectation is not met and monsters do appear, even though monsters are technically less common than if they spawned each night in the same quantity.

 

10 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Do note though that the respawn rule does not apply to the Archive boss, since the boss will respawn after a week has passed in the game(but won't drop more loot).

The boss drops all loot each time it's killed - this is at least partially a consideration for multiplayer servers where it's unlikely that everyone fights the boss at the same time to get a share of the loot. If you settle reasonably close to it, then it can be a very efficient way to farm temporal and rusty gears as well as metal parts and scraps.

Edited 10 hours ago by MKMoose
Elaborate more on stamina mechanics.

[CastIronFabric]

8 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Why should it change, though? I get that you don't like it, but that's a different question from whether it should be different. What's actually not working about it as it fits into the game right now, and if something is genuinely broken, how would you go about fixing it?

 

I am really struggling with this.

The basic logic here in a thread about making changes to the game is as follows. It does not matter if any specific feature is good or bad, enjoyable or not, the developers created it and as such its intentional and as such it should not change. If you, I or all of us do not enjoy it that is not the point, we either should enjoy it, suck it up or leave because the game is as its indented to be. We CAN however, use mods and talk about making improvements but at the same time the game is exactly as designed and that is the end of that (contradiction there)

?

 

[MKMoose]

44 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

Ok, I read that about three times and I still do not understand it because it what I read is a lot of logical contradictions.

Is it really that difficult to read a sentence for what it is?

• "Why should it change, though?" - a simple question.
• "I get that you don't like it, but that's a different question from whether it should be different." - a simple statement. Establishes a level of understanding, but notes that disliking something isn't by itself a sufficient argument for making design changes.
• "What's actually not working about it as it fits into the game right now, and if something is genuinely broken, how would you go about fixing it?" - a reasonably simple question. Asks to elaborate on the complaints and suggest a more specific direction for addressing them.

 

9 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Storms, rifts, world-spawn on death, item despawn: these are deliberate design choices [...]

Frankly, the more I see of the game the less I believe that. There's naturally a lot of deliberate design choices that make the game what it is, but equally there's a lot of old baggage, unintentional side effects, questionable decisions, and yet-unimplemented plans.

Temporal storms and temporal stability are a great example - they've clearly been added fully intentionally and had some kind of design thought put into them, but that doesn't mean that every single effect that they have on the game is intentional. They've been almost entirely unchanged since they were added in 1.12 besides the addition of bowtorns and shivers, so the game has changed plenty since then, and rifts are even older. Saraty and Tyron have said in the interview with Mahjong Blonsky (here, timestamp at the question) that storms are far from fleshed out and they have a bunch of ideas on how to improve them, which may address some of the complaints brought up here.

[CastIronFabric]

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

Is it really that difficult to read a sentence for what it is?

• "Why should it change, though?" - a simple question.
•  

lets break that down a bit

assertion: 'I really do not like it'

reply: 'why do you think it should change'

Sorry but I come from a world in which that is not logical and begs a better explanation and deeper context and I am immutable on that. I reject that its just a question that is self evident to be clear so that is where I stop and do not move foward until that context is explain. Anyway, carry on with regularly scheduled programming, but I am not diving deeper than that. 

 

Edited 9 hours ago by CastIronFabric

[Nekkowe]

11 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

A lot of this reads less like a combat complaint and more like "if I turn off the survival mechanics, the game gets less interesting," which... yeah, that's kind of the point of them.

Then please read my post more carefully. I was saying that if I leave these particular mechanics on, the game gets less interesting.

Temporal Storms don't incentivize planning ahead or preparing your base, or even staying in your base finding something constructive to do with your time while your hunger ticks down; because enemies can spawn directly next to you inside your home, they incentivize burying yourself in a 2x1 hole or running in circles in an open area outside.

The spawn point getting reset to world spawn doesn't incentivize careful management of a rare RNG drop you might never actually end up seeing any more of, it incentivizes building your base at world spawn.

11 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

opinionated whinging

Who pissed in your coffee? Is that a normal tone to take with strangers around here?

Edited 9 hours ago by Nekkowe

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

This is absolutely not true as far as I know. It's part of the reason why I've been harping about temporal mechanics being a disconnected, unfinished mess. The only factor that has any impact is the player's own stability, which will naturally tend to be lower in unstable areas and change how monsters spawn (though it doesn't actually increase spawns directly, it actually effectively reduces them in many contexts), but that's a second-order interaction. I can point you to the relevant code if interested.

Please do, because so far my gameplay experience suggests the opposite. On calm days there doesn't tend to be a lot of activity underground, unless it's a really unstable chunk, and on days with higher rift activity the underground tends to be a little...busier.

 

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

And regardless of all that, you've not addressed the comment that the game somewhat arbitrarily treats the spawn point as a particularly special location, and players are significantly encouraged to settle near the spawn point as a result of the easily-frustrating respawn mechanics combined with a couple other factors.

Um...this is why I suggested giving the player the ability to spawn with a temporal gear, if they so choose. That way they can have one "freebie" to set their spawn wherever they choose to build their base, while keeping the original design of more limitations on how the player sets spawn(ie, it costs something).

 

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

but I do want to specifically mention one thing regarding giving the player a temporal gear on spawn - when you set up the expectation that the player can run off and set their spawn wherever they want with a free temporal gear, then it's gonna be even more frustrating if the player happens to die before they decide on a suitable location.

So make it an amulet, which can be turned back into a gear, but can't be lost if the player dies. Unless they take it off, of course. That's on them.

What I don't like about "just make it bed spawns[like Minecraft]" is that...it's a very cheap way to handle it. It's an obvious game mechanic. There's not really a need to think very carefully about your actions if you can just make something cheap, like a bed, and plunk down a spawn point to go about your business and then move it around whenever you want. Not that there's much that can kill you in Minecraft, but I mean...if I can just plunk a bed down in the woods then I'm probably not going to be inclined to worry about watching for bears and wolves, since I can just respawn nearby. Same goes for tackling tough opponents--I'm not likely to think twice about picking a fight with a bear if I know I can just plunk down a bed in some fencing so I just respawn a few blocks away and kill the bear through attrition.

Now in fairness, some of the ideas you posted in that comment were okay, but I don't think they're a good solution to the problem because I don't think that's the kind of feature that the players usually complaining about it actually want(ie, they want convenient bed spawns like Minecraft).

1 hour ago, Nekkowe said:

I was saying that if I leave these particular mechanics on, the game gets less interesting.

Temporal Storms don't incentivize planning ahead or preparing your base, or even staying in your base finding something constructive to do with your time while your hunger ticks down; because enemies can spawn directly next to you inside your home, they incentivize burying yourself in a 2x1 hole or running in circles in an open area outside.

The spawn point getting reset to world spawn doesn't incentivize careful management of a rare RNG drop you might never actually end up seeing any more of, it incentivizes building your base at world spawn.

Again, it depends heavily on who you ask. In my experience, temporal storms do push the player to plan ahead, since it's an unnatural disaster that's going to roll through whether you're ready for it or not. If you want the goodies from the monsters within, then you need to prepare equipment and supplies to fight, and design your base to include more defensible positions. If you're a little more cautious, then you'll want to include a bunker to hide in. If you're intending to go on a long adventure, then you'll to plan for what you're going to do in the event of a temporal storm(there are more options than just hiding).

Does that mean every player is going to want to deal with them? No, hence why there are options to disable mechanics like that. And a simple dislike of a mechanic doesn't mean that the entire game needs to change to suit one's individual taste. Just for the record, this is also why many of the more veteran players tend to get aggravated with certain suggestions--there's quite a lot of them that are rooted in individual preference and don't seem to care much about the game's designs and intended direction.

On the availability of temporal gears, I do want to note that treasure hunters often sell them, and that's a very safe, relatively quick way to acquire one if you don't want to kill monsters or pan for one.

I will also note that encouraging the player to venture far away from world spawn and settle down(which you're going to do by making it easy to change spawn points) leaves the door wide open to make completing the story much more difficult, if not miss parts of the story entirely. If the player moves further away from story locations, then they'll need to spend more time traveling if they want to complete the story(several players probably won't be thrilled about that prospect). Likewise, if they travel in the right direction, they could stumble across certain locations long before they're ready, and potentially skip parts of the story. Which, the story itself will still make sense, but I think it would be just a little disappointing to skip the Resonance Archive only to find it later when it's not exactly relevant anymore. All this isn't to say that the player should stick strictly to spawn, but I don't think it's a bad idea to build a starter base somewhere within a reasonable distance of the world spawn and relocate later, once you have a better idea on where things are.

[williams_482]

14 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

For what it's worth, enemy spawns in story locations are static, not unlimited, with very few exceptions. The enemies you're probably referring to here are the locusts, and yes, there are a lot of them, as that is how locusts operate--in swarms. Typically the way you deal with them is to destroy the nearby cage spawners to get them to quit spawning, but since you can't destroy things in story locations, there's just a set number of them that you have to kill. Once you kill them all, they should remain dead unless you reset the location. Do note though that the respawn rule does not apply to the Archive boss, since the boss will respawn after a week has passed in the game(but won't drop more loot).

Locusts in the RA will respawn in batches from their nests on a regular cadence, although a slow one. I'd guess it's something in the vicinity of every 1-2 in-game days. 

[Teh Pizza Lady]

3 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

lets break that down a bit

assertion: 'I really do not like it'

reply: 'why do you think it should change'

Sorry but I come from a world in which that is not logical and begs a better explanation and deeper context and I am immutable on that. I reject that its just a question that is self evident to be clear so that is where I stop and do not move foward until that context is explain. Anyway, carry on with regularly scheduled programming, but I am not diving deeper than that. 

 

5 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

I am really struggling with this.

The basic logic here in a thread about making changes to the game is as follows. It does not matter if any specific feature is good or bad, enjoyable or not, the developers created it and as such its intentional and as such it should not change. If you, I or all of us do not enjoy it that is not the point, we either should enjoy it, suck it up or leave because the game is as its indented to be. We CAN however, use mods and talk about making improvements but at the same time the game is exactly as designed and that is the end of that (contradiction there)

?

 

I wasn't even talking to you, but okay... and no, that is not what I'm saying and it's a deliberate misinterpretation of my words. What I actually wrote was this:

Quote

Why should it change, though? I get that you don't like it, but that's a different question from whether it should be different. What's actually not working about it as it fits into the game right now, and if something is genuinely broken, how would you go about fixing it?

Why should it change, though?

I get that you don't like it, but that's a different question from whether it should be different.

What's actually not working about it as it fits into the game right now, AND if something is genuinely broken, how would you go about fixing it?

(emphasis added to help the back row of the class see what I actually said)

Hopefully that helps you understand what I actually wrote vs how you interpreted it. I am usually very precise with what I say because it's what I mean and reading between the lines is usually going to get you into trouble, because you're inferring intent from words that aren't there... which means you weren't reading to understand, you were skimming to prove a point and I don't engage nicely with people like that.

2 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

Then please read my post more carefully. I was saying that if I leave these particular mechanics on, the game gets less interesting.

My apologies, then, I definitely misread you. To be fair, it was a lot and I missed that. However I would argue that removing game mechanics shouldn't make the game more interesting because the specific mechanics that you're using as an example are what makes the game stand out from other block games that people tend to compare it to.

2 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

Temporal Storms don't incentivize planning ahead or preparing your base, or even staying in your base finding something constructive to do with your time while your hunger ticks down; because enemies can spawn directly next to you inside your home, they incentivize burying yourself in a 2x1 hole or running in circles in an open area outside.

The spawn point getting reset to world spawn doesn't incentivize careful management of a rare RNG drop you might never actually end up seeing any more of, it incentivizes building your base at world spawn.

I disagree. You are, of course, referring to the Temporal Gear that allows you to reset your spawn. Building your base at or near world spawn is the intended choice. All the story structures are distanced according to the world spawn, not where you decide to plant down your roots and build a base. Venturing too far might mean that you will have to travel a rather FAR distance to get to a story location or even a rather SHORT distance if you went the other way, depending on which direction you went and where the story location eventually spawned. If you remove the spawn point location reset feature of the Temporal Gear and instead allow beds to have that feature (like in TOBG), then what purpose or function does the temporal gear actually serve other than a rarely-used crafting material.

And for that matter, why does the elk have not one, not two, but three temporal gear storage slots?
Why would you bother avoiding bears when you can just... plop down a bed and kill it in a war of attrition?
Why would you even craft a terminus teleporter at your spawn location when you can just drop a bed and sleep in it right before you die?

Resetting your spawn location was either an oversight or a deliberate choice by the game devs and given how much is based around it, I'm going with the latter. Part of the game is learning how that mechanic works, getting used to it, and planning around it.

As for temporal storms, you're looking at them from the wrong perspective. Part of the game is realizing that the world is dangerous, that something is dreadfully wrong, and there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing you can do to keep the monsters out, nothing you can do but to pray and wait until the storm blows over. You build armor and ready your finest weapons, you stay indoors or at least don't venture out very far, you fight, not because you can, but because you must. There is no escape from the horror that has stricken the land. It's up to you to find out what is going on and why and what you can do about it.

2 hours ago, Nekkowe said:

Who pissed in your coffee? Is that a normal tone to take with strangers around here?

No, it's not my normal tone with strangers. It's the tone I take when someone shows up four posts deep, hasn't finished the content they're complaining about, and states opinions as settled fact. That gets a firm rebuttal, not a hostile response. 

Again, I did say that you highlighted some good points, but they were mixed in with so much of the... opinions ...that it was hard to tell what was what. Please don't take this as a personal attack, it's just how your post came across to me.

Edited 7 hours ago by Teh Pizza Lady

[Bumber]

23 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

While you can't place torches down in the Archive in order to light them or place lit torches just anywhere

Torches provide light as dropped items, IIRC.

They'll probably be immediately picked up again, however. Turning off auto pickup won't help if the intention is to use a shield, unfortunately.

If you toss them behind the enemy (or fall back), it might be doable. You'll probably be able to fight their silhouette.

Edited 6 hours ago by Bumber